


Peter Parker and the Very Bad No Good Mercenary Fleet

by ChibisUnleashed



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Lasers, M/M, Plot who? Never met her, SCIFI AU, Space Ships, Tazers, Temporary Character Death, This here is a science fiction party rolling downhill fast, Those poor guys in engineering, We're here for the jokes and the flirting, and also, because lots of fighting in here, lots of guns and violence and creative ways to get hurt, rating to be safe, this totally qualifies as a meetcute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:01:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22568257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibisUnleashed/pseuds/ChibisUnleashed
Summary: So what if Peter’s an enhanced human being? His everyday, average, utterly normal human being powers of very good lab work and drive to innovate have been far more useful to the universe. Peter Parker, owner and founder of Parker Tech, has been leading the cosmos in medical technology for years. Ever since he founded it, in fact.Peter can’t leave a person in need without aid. It’s just not in him. So when he finds out a mercenary blockade has prevented the transport of vital medical supplies to a planet just outside of the United Front’s jurisdiction, he decides to go there and fix the situation by force (Because it’s mercenaries. Force will be necessary.)Wade doesn’t really care either way, but if a hottie in a tight suit offered you a ridiculous amount of money to lend them a hand, would you say no?
Relationships: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson
Comments: 35
Kudos: 162
Collections: Isn't it Bromantic?, Spideypool Big Bang - The 2019 Collection





	Peter Parker and the Very Bad No Good Mercenary Fleet

**Author's Note:**

> For the Spideypool Big Bang 2019! Thanks to the mods for hosting and organizing! We know it's a lot of work! <3
> 
> I want to thank both K-Nyne-Luvr and MsCap for putting up with what was a truly shitty first draft. This would not look even as polished as it does without them. That said, I'm absolutely sure it's still a trashfire but that's all on me. ^_~
> 
> Thanks also goes to my artist, ask-spideypool-42069, for sticking with me when they saw my truly shitty first draft, all the way to the end!
> 
> To see their work, visit them at [ask-spideypool-42069](https://ask-spideypool-42069.tumblr.com/) and specifically the art for this story [here!](https://ask-spideypool-42069.tumblr.com/post/190654729227/yo-this-is-my-post-for-spideypoolbigbang)

"Aren't you supposed to be saving lives?"

Peter checked his supply crates for the sixth time as he awaited the announcement to sit down and buckle up for departure. Everything appeared normal; the huge beige crates and smaller, dull green cases were all lashed together appropriately with synthetic, but strong rope. If he didn’t know already which crates were his, he wouldn’t have been able to tell. The cargo bay looked like it always did: full of nameless, featureless cargo.

“What makes you think I’m not?” Peter teased. He made sure to smile his most innocent and charming smile. Kyle would know it was a little bit bullshit, but he might not be able to tell just how much.

Kyle shrugged lean shoulders, mostly hidden under pounds of kevlar and heavy cotton, and gestured around them at the bare steel walls on all sides, “This isn’t a hospital.” It wasn’t even an aid vessel, or medical transport. In fact, Peter’s supplies weren’t supposed to be there at all.

Peter grinned. “That’s never stopped me.”

“Oh right,” Kyle smiled at the joke between them, “I forgot. You’re a superhero. Nobody stops you. You go where you want, do what you want, say what you want-”

Peter cut him off right there, “Because I save lives.” That wasn’t strictly true. It was also because he had money. And an enhancement or three.

Kyle knew, of course. Most of his friends in the military did. It was considered need to know, officially. Realistically, everyone who ended up beside him near a battle  _ needed to know.  _

The soldier laughed, but conceded, “Because you save lives. Even when nobody asked you to.”

That wasn’t fair. Peter pouted at Kyle in his best imitation of hurt pride. Volcax absolutely had asked for his help in cleaning up their atmosphere and detoxing their population. The United Front had given him all the permission he needed to actually do that. 

Just because he hadn’t been expressly invited to join the conflict and administer help  _ right now  _ didn’t mean asking never happened.

Kyle threw him the bird and a bright smile, “Don’t you look at me like that. You know exactly what you’re doing here, and that it’s not allowed.”

If Kyle were permitted to discuss military happenings outside of military walls, he would probably be running a website, ‘WhatPeterParkerDidTodayThatHeWasntSupposedToDo.com.’ Peter wouldn’t be surprised to find out he had a Bingo card up his sleeve where he crossed off the increasingly ridiculous stunts Peter pulled with only technically accurate paperwork behind them. Hell, Kyle had gotten at least a quarter of those applications stamped and notarized himself, just to find out what Peter was planning to do with them after. One of the documents tucked away in Peter’s pockets right now had been delivered by Kyle just this morning.

So yes. Kyle had every right to tease the absolute fuck out of him for talking his way on board a transport that shouldn’t take him with cargo that shouldn’t be there to complete a mission that nobody assigned him for a planet that didn’t explicity request his help.

Volcax was a planet outside the Front’s current borders. The natives called themselves something different, something hard to pronounce for pretty much everyone else, but the United Front called the planet Volcax and the people Caxians. Apparently that was cool enough, because the native population didn’t seem to mind.

Volcax had a weak crust for a planet, relatively speaking, and a nasty habit of spewing poisonous gases up into the atmosphere. Peter’s was one of several companies that got to work on various filters and cleaners and detoxifiers to keep the planet habitable, and it had taken a few years but they were winning. Peter specifically manufactured and maintained an atmospheric cleanser that hovered just inside the mesosphere doing its best to keep the various atmospheric layers from degrading too far to support life. 

So maybe what Peter was doing wasn’t allowed, but it needed to be done.

Peter patted his pockets and pretended he was looking for something, “I mean, if you want to see the signed permission slips…”

Kyle laughed and waved at him to stop. “I’ve seen them, you ass. You know that’s not what I mean. I don’t know what you’re planning to do about this mercenary blockade, but I know you wouldn’t be bringing all this medical junk with you if you didn’t think you could get past it. And since we’ve been fighting for at least a month without getting past it ourselves, I know that you’re going to do something mildly illegal and definitely crazy and my only regret is that I’m going to be stuck on the bridge the whole time and probably won’t get to watch you do it.”

There was no use in denying any of that. Peter hadn’t been able to ship out a supply of filters or detergents in  _ weeks. _

Which was why the crates all around him were stocked to the brim with back order supplies. Volcax needed them, and Peter was going to get them there, one way or the other. 

Plausible deniability was an important thing, though. It wouldn’t be good for Kyle to know any details about what Peter was going to do, regardless of how legal or slightly illegal it was. Thus, Peter focused on the one thing he could talk to Kyle about. “You’re stuck on the bridge the whole time?”

Kyle smiled ruefully and shrugged, “All the hours I’m awake, at least.”

It was things like this that made Peter eternally thankful that he had not enlisted. He was supposed to. Everybody who was enhanced was supposed to. Peter hadn’t signed up for super strength and sticky feet, though. He’d been in the wrong place at the right time, and despite his speed and sixth sense for things going wrong, he’d just known that his scientific talents would be more valuable to the universe at large. Staying home with his chemistry set instead of signing up to be sent out to the front lines had been the best decision of his life.

“That sucks,” Peter said, honesty infused into every syllable. Military life was hard. Kyle was pretty suited to it, and even he regretted his assignments some days. Then a thought struck Peter and he sat up a little straighter, “Will Liita be on the bridge?”

Kyle made a big show out of checking his comms and ignoring Peter. “We’ll be leaving soon,” he finally said, “Time to buckle in.”

Peter deflated but obediently went to sit his restless self down. The thin metal seats set into the wall of the cargo bay were the least comfortable it was possible to be and still call yourself a chair. Peter buckled up, but had more faith in his hands to keep him attached to the wall than these restraints. 

“How soon is soon?” he asked, because torturing his ass with this seat any longer than necessary was cruel.

Kyle seemed to realize that and offered Peter an apologetic look, but shrugged. “They’re calling me to the bridge. That’s all I can tell you. We’re all to get in our places so the curtains can rise, but there’s a lot of us and a lot of places.”

Peter nodded along. “And a lot of safety checks and a lot of paperwork, I know. Hey," Peter stopped Kyle from leaving at the last second, "Have you asked Liita out yet?" Because Peter really wanted to know.

Kyle rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. And halfway around the door. "No, and if you push me about it I never will." 

Peter shrugged sheepishly. "I just want you to be happy." 

Kyle laughed and stepped out of sight, clearly dismissing him. "You barely know me." 

Peter called after him, "I know you deserve to be happy!" 

Faintly from down the corridor, he heard, "Yes, Mother."

Peter sighed and lamented that he was officially left alone for what would be hours. The cargo bay was unremarkable and therefore uninteresting in every way, and no one would be coming back to alleviate his boredom for the rest of the flight. 

For the sake of strategy alone, Peter wished he knew more about what he was getting into. He had it all sorted from the humanitarian side. Peter knew the Caxian people needed his tech to survive and that he was potentially strong enough to get it to the surface himself. He wasn’t a soldier, which gave him leeway to operate outside of orders, and it had gotten him in trouble in the past, but since he tried pretty hard not to break any serious laws, it hadn’t stuck hard enough to stop him yet. 

Peter tapped his foot anxiously against the hard metal floors. The sooner he got there, the sooner he could figure it all out. Kyle was used to waiting on orders, so soon for him could be a whole hour or more. Soon for Peter was closer to five minutes. This trip was going to be  _ unbearable.  _

Peter bit his lip and forcefully stopped his foot from tapping. He was psyching himself up for nothing. 

After what felt like an eternity of distant clanks and the quiet hum of machines, Peter felt the ship begin to stir. He sat up straight in his seat and pressed his feet flat to the floor for stability and thought again about what he was going to do. His plan was simple: show up to the battle field, see if he could sneak past enemy lines, and get to saving some lives. 

It was a bit weak.

(Kyle would definitely laugh at this plan.)

But it was all he had until he could see for himself just what the hurdles were. Peter resigned himself to feeling restless for most of the day, and decided to focus on finding out as much as he could about the ongoing battle from the warehouse panels he had access to inside the loading bay. Hopefully there would be something to read. He might even get bored enough to sleep. 

...

Peter woke to a ship-wide jolt. He was still in his restraints, the lights were on, and the atmosphere felt fine, so he decided not to panic. 

He knew the transport could come out of light-speed smoother than that, though. So they must have gotten hit by enemy cannonfire. Good to see the party was well underway, then.

Peter unbuckled his restraints and figured it was time he joined in. 

The loading bay had been quiet, insulated from almost everything but the roar of engines. The hall had much thinner walls and open doors all the way down the line. Peter could hear the occasional shouting, but mostly it was a storm of white noise: footsteps and hatches closing and heavy things being moved from here to there. No one else was panicked, either, and Peter melded into the well-oiled machine.

He left the loading bay behind to begin looking for any number of outside access hatches or weapons bays or even the bridge, if he could swing it. Maybe he could even say hi to Kyle. He needed something with a good view and the right angle. Primarily, Peter wanted to know exactly what the battle outside looked like so he could find the fastest way around it. 

The viewports inside the second weapons bay he found were ideal. Soldiers ran past him in both directions carrying missives scribbled on print-outs and ammunition by the case. It was much more chaotic here, where everything relied on reflexes and split-second decisions. More soldiers sat in piloting chairs where they could control the outside defense systems independently and keep their ship in one piece long enough to deliver the supplies they came here with. Peter’s supplies were not a part of that mission, and if he couldn’t find a place to unload them himself, or  _ invent  _ a place as the case may be, then the transport would be going back with them still onboard. 

Peter caught a familiar freckled face out of the corner of his eye and reached with his hand to snatch their thin shoulder, “Pippa!”

She cursed, loud and colorfully, in her shock before she recognized Peter and immediately calmed. “Peter, I swear, I just saw my life flash before my eyes. Don’t you know we’re at war, here?”

“Sorry,” and he meant it, “I was hoping you could tell me how bad it really was?”

Pippa shrugged her shoulder, and conveniently tossed Peter’s hand off with the same movement, “Only as bad as we expected it to be. We’re under fire, but the shields will hold long enough to unload. We just have to find the ship we’re supposed to dock with, and it’s kind of crazy out there.”

“Crazy enough it might take several hours?” Peter asked hopefully.

Pippa clearly knew he was up to something, but then, Peter always was. “...Probably.”

That was great news. Peter knew what the schedule was supposed to be, but best laid plans and all that jazz. That gave Peter time to really get his shit together. 

Peter had clearance to travel between military ships, but the transmission tech wasn’t beefy enough to send entire pallets through, and nothing short of a space station could transmit them down to the surface. There weren’t any space stations here, for many good reasons. Be all end all, Peter had to either convince  _ this _ transport to land on the surface itself (Which was never going to happen), or he had to find another ship willing to link up long enough to transfer between loading bays (Which could easily happen, if he gave this ship’s shields enough of a break to last). 

Neither would happen without one hell of an incentive, though. And nothing was going to change as long as Peter stayed aboard  _ this  _ ship. 

Peter glanced over Pippa’s shoulder to look through the viewport behind her. From what he could see around her reddish hair, the fighting was localized just ahead of them. It made sense. 

The Front could bombard the mercs on this side of the planet and hopefully take a ship or five out. The mercs would have to shift positions to fill the gap, and consider the cost of the lost vessels. Surrounding the entire planet twice, and trying to take on the entire blockade at once, meant splitting the Front’s weaponry amongst the whole thing and lowering their chances of actually taking any individual ship out. 

Which meant it was dead quiet on the other side of the blockade, and all Peter really had to do was find out on which ship the mercs were napping. 

“Peter,” Pippa broke into his thoughts, “I love you. Really, I do. You know I do. And I’d love to ask why you’re so happy to know this ship will be taking fire for actual  _ hours,  _ but I have a job to do. So goodbye, and please don’t get yourself killed.”

She left before Peter could reply. 

He leaned down over the shoulder of a dark-haired soldier he recognized the profile of so he could see better through his viewport. They had met, Peter remembered, but they weren’t on as friendly of terms as some of the other soldiers. Peter was banking on them at least remembering his face so they wouldn’t wonder what a civilian was doing on board or what his interest was in asking questions. 

It took him a second or two to remember their name, but their surname was helpfully screenprinted on their uniform to remind him. “Carlos, have you been to this battlefield before, by chance?”

“Every couple of days on supply runs,” he answered in a tired voice, more focused on what his cannon was doing than what Peter was asking, “Why?”

Peter redirected by asking another question of his own, “What’s the usual activity level of the rest of the blockade? Do they all just sit out there?”

“For the most part, yeah,” Carlos said, and his voice sounded more interested now. Peter had asked a good question. “We get radio bursts from them, of course. Constant chatter, but it’s all coded. No weapons fire from any of them. Even if a ship floats past, we have to engage first, before any of the ships do  _ anything.”  _

Peter expected as much, but it was still disappointing not to have an obvious target to go for. If every ship was on standby and every ship was transmitting to every other all the time, there would be no apparent distinction between an alert crew and a sleepy one. Oh well. He would just have to gamble. Peter carefully made sure not to show his disappointment to Carlos. 

“Have you guys broken the code?” It didn’t really matter, but it was a viable continuation of their conversation, to throw him off the scent of Peter’s actual interest in all this.

“Some of it. Just enough to make the rest frustrating, really.”

Peter snorted, “That sucks.”

“You’re tellin’ me. We could be out here forever if it stays like this.”

Strictly speaking, that was true. The Front’s entire strategy was to outlast the mercs, nothing more. Mercenaries only worked while the pay was good, so as soon as the battle began to cost more than they were making, they would give up the contract. Unfortunately for all of them, they appeared to be playing the long game. Quiet ships used less fuel and ammunitions, allowing the blockade to last, and there was a veritable net of ships surrounding the entire planet. The Front forces couldn’t get past if they didn’t want to lose a ship of their own. 

“Well,” Peter patted Carlos’ shoulder and stood up straighter, “I hope this whole thing gets wrapped up nice and tight soon so you can take a couple vacation days, huh?” It would if Peter had any say about it.

For the first time, Carlos looked up at him, “Sir, I’m not sure you understand how the military works.”

Peter nodded sagely and replied, “You’re probably right.”

Before the sentence was done, Carlos was focused back on his task. Peter decided he had bothered the man enough and stepped back from the bay of consoles to look for any other familiar faces. There were plenty, but none he was particularly close to. He called out a greeting or two and a wish for good luck, but otherwise left without getting any more information out of anyone there. It was time to find a transmission center. 

Luckily, Peter had the blueprints of the ship from back in the loading bay. Unluckily, blueprints don’t really look anything like actual walls and floors, so finding the transmission center two floors up took a few tries. 

When he walked in, it was right into the dead stare of a man who had too little coffee and too many responsibilities. Peter hoped this meant he was way past caring, because transmitting behind enemy lines was sort of frowned upon in this establishment. Peter had to do what he had to do, though. Lives were on the line.

“Hello!” he greeted pleasantly, but not too loudly. He wanted to be friendly, but not annoying. That was the goal. It was something of a hard goal, for a man like Peter.

“Are you cleared to be in here?” the soldier on duty immediately asked, with his eyebrow raised and everything.

Peter sighed and started digging for his military ID. So much for not caring.

He slid the card into the console’s reader so that the soldier could see his file. It wasn’t a  _ public  _ file, but it was the public version within the  _ military.  _ The general public weren’t to know about his handy dandy super powers, and this card kept that secret.

All the same, the important part was, it said he could go anywhere, anytime, so long as the military wasn’t using up any resources to get him there. Transmitting himself from one military ship to another was a small enough drain on their resources to be acceptable. 

“Alright,” the soldier said without preamble, and Peter took the opportunity to check out his nametag. Perez continued in the same breath, “so where are you going?”

Solid question. It was a calculated move, picking which ship to transfer to. Peter wanted to start with a ship on  _ their  _ side and closer to the edge of the battle to maximize how far out he could eventually get. A nice, quiet rest stop on his way into the fire.

He picked one that didn’t look too involved in the battle. It might  _ actually  _ be quiet there.

Apparently his on-the-fly selection didn’t sit too well with the transmitter operator. His brow wrinkled as he examined his console, and Peter prayed he hadn’t just picked some known oddity of a vessel, some superstitious bad luck ship that everyone currently enlisted knew to avoid. Or something equally stupid. 

Eventually Perez looked up and met Peter’s eyes, “Where are you  _ really  _ going?”

This guy should play poker. He would be great at it. “What makes you think I’m not staying there?”

“The way you avoided answering the question.”

Oh. That was a good answer. Peter guessed that was checkmate, then. “I’m headed to one of the mercenary ships. Any one, doesn’t matter.”

“What for?”

“To take it over.”

Perez snorted, “You and what army? Your file says it’s not  _ this  _ one.”

“I’m a one man army,” Peter smiled and shrugged, “My file also says you can’t stop me. So tell me, am I calling your supervisor, or?...”

Peter waved cheerily as the technician punched in the coordinates with a carefully neutral expression, and he faded out.

The next transmission room attendant was a lot more helpful. Stressed and in the middle of a battle, but helpful. 

“What the fuck are  _ you  _ doing here?!”

Peter didn’t recognize her, so he assumed the emphasis on, ‘you,’ was a sort of general, universal you, and not because she was surprised that  _ Peter Parker,  _ meditech inventor and billionaire extraordinaire, had just transferred onto her ship. 

“Just stopping by. I’ll be out in a jiffy. Mind if I check the stats on your transporter?” Not that he waited for her okay or anything, but it was a nice thing to say as Peter plugged his wristband into the nearest panel. 

"I do mind," she muttered, eyes already back on her panel, "but it's not like I'm going to stop you, so…"

Their ship had a longer transmission range and was in the process of moving to the outskirts of the active fighting. Peter ran some diagnostics and figured out that they were overwhelmed by the amount of comms coming and going from the ship. Rather than transporting anything, the operator was going through the messages and forwarding anything that needed specific officers’ responses and replying to anything that had a general answer. 

Well, that was a fairly easy fix. Or, maybe not  _ fix,  _ but Peter could help. Even from inside the transmission room, through the tiny little screen on his wrist, Peter could unencode messages. He couldn't reply to them (Or at least he  _ shouldn’t) _ , but he could save the communication officer on the bridge several seconds of their time per message. It would add up. 

He briefly wondered if the comm officer was injured and someone else was manning their station. It would explain the back-up, and why the transmission officer was doing two jobs here. There wasn’t anything he could do about it in the long run. Peter was just passing the time until this ship was as far out as it was planning to go. 

“Are you…  _ doing  _ something?” the operator asked out of the blue. Peter looked up to see her staring in puzzlement at her screen, even as her fingers kept moving over the panels and keys.

“I’m unencrypting the messages for you, so you can just read them and get them where they’re going.”

She looked up at him, then, “Isn’t that a security concern? Can anybody read them, now?”

Peter shook his head, and calmly hurried to reassure her before she leapt to conclusions and transmitted him right out into space, “No, I’m only in the system through your access, so it’s like I’m clicking things on your screen for you. But I did break into the system and give you higher clearance temporarily so that I could see what was happening on the bridge. But it all goes away when I do.”

Her expression only darkened, “Literally all of that sounds illegal.”

“It is,” Peter agreed, because lying would be stupid, “but as long as I don’t fuck anything up, the military doesn’t care what I do.”

In an instant, her face fell into an unimpressed look, “You’re rich, aren’t you?”

“Filthy.”

She scoffed, “Figures,” and got back to work.

Peter kept one eye on their location despite all this hacking he was doing. They were taking a wide arc of a path through the battle, and in about two minutes he would have the greatest pick of the mercenary ships he could reach. All he had to do was pick one, because this operator obviously didn’t care what he did, as long as he got out of her hair.

He grabbed her attention when the time came with a smile and a bad joke, then got the hell off her ship.

Arriving in a transmission room behind enemy lines is one of the most unpredictable things in the universe. You might get shot before you’re fully  _ there.  _ You might get the drop on them because they thought the room was empty. You might be arriving to find an entire platoon readying to beam out. Or nobody might be there at all. These were merc ships. Salaries were expensive. 

Peter lucked out. The merc manning the room he arrived in wasn’t quick to draw, or maybe Peter was just quicker. A swift application of web to their entire upper torso knocked them off their feet and kept them tangled up long enough for Peter to jump over the console and check for any outgoing messages or anomalies that might tell the entire fucking ship that he was here. 

But there was nothing.

Which meant Peter had free reign of a control panel that could tell him almost anything he wanted to know about the ship he was currently on. With a casual tranq to quiet the mercenary at his feet, Peter got to investigating the systems beneath his fingertips. It was the same technology the Front was currently using, which meant Peter knew the system inside and out and could find the ship manifests and communication logs without breaking a sweat. He downloaded everything he found to his on-person computer and got to hacking the stuff hidden behind firewalls. 

He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. It was obvious what the mercenaries were doing here, after all. And Peter wasn’t trying to gather intel for the Front or anything, he just wanted to break the blockade so the Caxians could continue to  _ breathe.  _ Getting the blueprints for  _ this  _ ship off of the computer was helpful, because it told him where the bridge was, where the supplies were, etc, but it didn’t tell him where any number of soldiers was at any given time. The weapons bays were guaranteed to be full, but if Peter wanted to take them out one by one, nothing here would tell him how to…

And then Peter found the work schedule.

That would do.

Peter grabbed the mercenary at his feet and carried them until he found a convenient storage room to hide them. The schedule wasn’t the most specific thing in the world, but it did say when lunches were and when certain systems needed to be checked, calibrated, and cleaned, and that was good enough. Peter could easily hide out in some tech room until one or two guys came to check on it and whittle away at the crew. 

Which is how Peter found himself holed up in a networking hub monitoring the communications between mercenary ships as he waited for sentries to come by. The pile of unconscious mercs in the corner was probably as high as it was going to get after Peter sent out three malfunctioning pings to the servers. Any panel running any level of diagnostic would see this room giving off errors and as predicted, pairs of mercs were sent to investigate and repair whatever was going on. But after three whole groups went unresponsive, Peter didn’t expect investigators any more. He expected a troop coming to eliminate whatever was taking out their soldiers. So he changed the ping to an all-clear and left the pile to nap.

Just as he was sliding the door shut, Peter heard the arming of a laser weapon behind him. Well, shit. 

Peter spun toward the merc and hopped to one side simultaneously. It was only one guy, but he looked armed to the teeth, easily carrying three times as much weaponry as any given pair Peter had seen so far. As the mercenary tracked him with their weapon and fired, Peter gave up the thought that all the weight might slow them down. They weren’t having any problems following Peter as he flipped up to the ceiling and dropped down on the other side. If anything, Peter was going to tire  _ himself  _ out before they ran out of energy packs. And that was no good.

“Hey, c’mon,” Peter cajoled, figuring with his stealth tactic blown to bits, he might as well try for distraction. Or maybe even actual negotiation. “Can’t we talk this out?”

Three more blasts followed Peter around the hall before he heard a reply, “What’s, ‘this,’ and why does it need to be out?”

That was a solid question, and Peter was suitably impressed. “‘This’ is the romantic tension between us, and it needs to be out because depriving it of sunlight is cruel and unusual, obviously.”

Peter heard a gasp from behind the mercenary’s facemask, “Our love does not deserve to wither in the dark!”

...This was not the usual response to Peter’s taunting remarks. But he wasn’t being shot at anymore, so he would take it. “Right,” Peter agreed, except now he had to bullshit some more, “so why don’t we lower our weapons and discuss our first date?”

Not only was the gun lowered, it was holstered. “I’m partial to Cenev and the beaches on Tilnoo. Unfortunately, I’m kind of stuck here and Volcax isn’t really a vacation destination. Choking on poison really puts off the mood.”

This felt like a derailed train that Peter was riding the whole way down, but he saw the opening and he took it, “Why are you stuck here? I have a transport waiting to take me back to Central in just a few hours. You can ride with me.”

“Uhhh…” the mercenary rubbed the back of his mask, and Peter cursed himself for finding it endearing, “I’m being paid to man this ship. I would get in a lot of trouble if I just ran off. Also, I wouldn’t get paid.”

Peter dropped right to the floor. There was no clearer way to say this man had no loyalties to his crew than that. If money alone was his motivation, well, Peter had a lot of that. “What if _I_ hire you to help me with my mission? Then you get paid _and_ you’re not stuck here.”

Peter could see the man perk up despite the bulky armor. “How do I know you’re good for it?”

Holding his arms out to both sides, Peter showed off the fancy technology covering himself from head to toe. He trusted the merc would recognize the tech for what it was. “I paid for all this?”

The mercenary nodded to himself as he spent entirely too long looking Peter up and down, “Okay, yeah, you’re loaded. I’m Wade,” he held out his hand to shake.

“Peter,” he didn’t get a bad feeling about that hand, so Peter shook it. He wasn’t getting any bad feelings about this at all, actually. The train wreck feeling was still there, the whole situation having spiraled out of control before Peter knew what he was doing in it, but it sort of came back around under dubious control? There were a dozen or so pitfalls ahead of him, but until Peter had evidence that this wasn’t going to work, he would roll with it.

The first pitfall lay at his feet. “So, Wade,” he began with a fortifying breath, “I’m here to take the entire crew out, take control of this ship, break the blockade, and land on the surface. You with me?”

There were worrying moments of silence between Peter’s admission and Wade’s eventual answer, which was a shrug.“Yeah, sure, if you’re paying.”

Peter let out a relieved sigh and gestured down the hall, “After you.”

Wade easily turned on his heels and began to walk, and Peter was surprised he didn’t hesitate longer before putting Peter at his back.  _ Peter  _ wasn’t ready to turn his back on Wade, after all, but maybe the mercenary knew that? Or he was confident enough in his skill to consider an attack from behind less of a concern than it was for Peter. Either way, Peter was surprised at the next words to leave Wade’s mouth, “So, Cenev or Tilnoo? I guess it depends on whether you’re more interested in the food or the accommodations. For a  _ first  _ date, probably the food. That means Cenev. Do you have a favorite city on Cenev?”

Peter had almost forgotten that this was a thing. He had started to think Wade had forgotten about it, too. Or, maybe not forgotten, but accepted that it wasn’t  _ actually  _ a thing, and just some shit Peter said to get his attention. If Wade was serious about it, Peter wasn’t sure what he was going to do. 

Theoretically, if they successfully broke the blockade and Peter  _ did  _ take Wade back with him, there wasn’t… really any reason at all why they  _ shouldn’t  _ go on a date. Peter had not expected his thoughts to go this way. 

Well, “I’m partial to cities two thirty-four through two thirty-nine. I like the climate in that region and, yeah, the food.”

Wade rubbed the bottom of his mask as if it were actually his chin, “From those, I pick two thirty-five. Not for any real reason, I just like the roundness of the number.”

“Sounds like a date,” Peter couldn’t believe he found himself saying.

Wade turned to walk backwards and pressed both hands to his mask, “Does this mean I get to call you, ‘lover’?”

Peter held up one finger, “We haven’t made love.”

“‘Boyfriend’?”

With a shrug, Peter figured that wouldn’t damage his reputation too bad if anyone heard it. Besides, the people most likely to hear were other mercenaries and their opinion didn’t really matter, did it? “Sure, why not?”

“Alright, Boy Toy, where are we headed?”

...Well, that respectability lasted not long at all. The time it would take to argue about it wasn’t worth it to Peter, so he just answered the question, “To wherever we can take out a moderate amount of the crew without getting overwhelmed. I figure with two of us, that would be the nearest breakroom.”

Wade grinned, and Peter could see it even through his mask, “Follow me!”

The trip was a short one and they didn’t run into anyone else along the way. The ship didn’t have a full crew. It wasn’t quite a skeleton crew, but it might as well be for how deserted the corridors were. With the element of surprise on their side, Wade and Peter incapacitated the room of mercenaries without breaking a sweat, and Peter found himself spending the time on strategizing, now that he had help to rely on. Although, rely was a strong word, wasn’t it?

They needed to remove the mercenaries from the weapons bays if they were going to overtake the entire crew, but there was no way to quietly eliminate all of them. Someone, at some point, would sound an alarm and then the bridge would lock down. Peter really didn’t want to have to take on a locked down bridge, which meant he needed to hit the bridge before he took on the weapons bays. 

A solid dozen mercenaries were already out of their way, so Peter was making good progress. Although, Wade’s approach to removing obstacles was a little less humane than Peter’s, and didn’t feel much like  _ progress  _ at all. Wade’s weapons were definitely meant to permanently remove people from the picture, whereas Peter was a healer through and through. He couldn’t take someone’s life with that much ease. But… Wade’s help was going to get the Caxians their aid that much quicker, and if he had to pick between the lives of mercenaries and the lives of civilians, it wasn’t much of a debate. And debating about it at all would just take time he didn’t want to spend, so...

Peter waited until Wade was done hiding the mix of unconscious and dead bodies in the breakroom storage before he bothered to ask, “How far from here to the bridge?”

“A good jog if you take the halls and lift. A little shorter if you squeeze through the engineering tunnels,” Wade answered.

The time wasn’t as big of a factor as surprise was. The engineering tunnels sounded like the better option, if only because cameras were rare inside them, if they were there at all, and even when they were, nobody really monitored them except engineering. And the mercenaries  _ did  _ have a skeleton crew in engineering. That was their best bet.

“I pick the tunnels,” Peter said with a wave, “Lead the way.”

The tunnels were less cramped than Wade made them sound, except Wade was covered in bulky armor and more weapons than Peter could count. He had a bare inch of play on all sides, whereas Peter was almost comfortable crawling through the walls like this. His slim bodysuit allowed for all the necessary flexibility and his compact weapons didn’t get in his way. Meanwhile, the only part of Wade that wasn’t covered in plating, weapons, or both appeared to be his ass, conveniently positioned directly in front of Peter’s face so that he could get a really good look at it.

Peter tried, for maybe the first two minutes,  _ not  _ to get a really good look, but… Well, it was  _ right there  _ and Peter wasn’t opposed enough to keep fighting. Wade had a nice ass. If they didn’t have a job to do that people’s lives depended on, Peter might have even enjoyed himself.

But they did have a job to do. And people were in danger of dying. So he gave it a good look, but kept his mind three steps ahead in their plan. The tunnels didn’t actually connect to the bridge proper. That would be an obvious security risk. So they would have to climb out and rush the doors before anybody bothered to check security outside. That shouldn’t be too hard; the hard part would be rushing a bridge with an unknown amount of mercenaries. He wasn’t looking to get Wade killed, but that was a realistic possibility here. This was, for all intents and purposes, a war over a planet and Peter was confident in his skill and his tech, but Wade…

He had only just met Wade.

“Hey, uh,” Peter began, ignoring the fact that he was talking to Wade’s shapely butt, “if you want to sit this part out, that’s fine. I can probably take it alone, and I don’t want you to die here. Who will go on our date if you do?”

“Don’t you worry, Baby Boy,” Wade replied with confidence in his voice, “I’m harder to kill than you’d think. Nothing is going to keep me from wooing you over good food and more good food.” He stopped crawling to press himself against one wall of the tunnel so that he could see Peter over his shoulder, and Peter would swear he could see the man’s grin, “No one’s worried about me in a long time, Petey. It must be true love!”

True love, or just a well-formed conscience, Peter thought. He returned the smile though, because Wade might be acting like this was no big deal, but it was a huge fucking deal. His employer would probably never trust him to work for them again. 

They stopped just outside the tunnel exit to recheck their weapons and discuss a bit of strategy. Peter didn’t want to get accidentally shot, even if his armor would keep it from being fatal, and he didn’t want to drop Wade because the man got between him and his target. They took one last steadying breath, counted to three, and dropped into the corridor. 

Wade got the door open because he was actually supposed to be here and therefore had a security code. Peter sprayed a blanket of webbing as the door slid to the side, not waiting to be surprised by guns or bullets or blasts. Unfortunately, only two people were close enough to get caught in it, but Peter didn’t spend the time to mourn. He jumped up onto the ceiling and darted across the room to give the mercenaries separated targets and make himself and Wade just that much harder to hit. 

Peter swung down from the ceiling to knock the communications specialist over with a solid kick, making sure they couldn’t get a distress signal out via ship intercom. Well, he assumed they were a specialist; technically, they could have been anyone. Best to knock them solidly out of the game so it didn’t matter. A bonafide expert at the double-tap, Peter dropped over the top of them and made sure they saw stars with a nice punch to the face, then webbed them to the floor. By which point, a new friend had come up behind him, and Peter dodged to the side to avoid their club.

He could see Wade across the bridge, barricaded behind the navigation console, picking off the mercenaries who decided to shoot at him one by one. He really was a good shot, and he was keeping the attention of most of the crew in the room on him and away from Peter. Probably because he, objectively, looked like a much bigger threat than Peter. More obvious weapons, more obvious armor, physically larger, and oh, also, he was covered in guns. Lots of guns. Peter wasn’t carrying anything at all that  _ looked  _ like a gun. And that was intentional. 

Most blunt weapons weren’t as strong as Peter’s arms, especially when they were covered in his bodysuit sleeves. That made it especially easy to block the next strike, and then railroad the poor mercenary to the floor. Peter knocked their helmet into the railing behind them and webbed their hands down when it was clear they were unconscious. 

This time, when Peter sprayed his webbing across the bridge, he had most of the crew in sight and was able to wrap up a good four at once. Unfortunately, Wade took that as an opportunity to shoot a couple in the chest, and Peter could only hope their armor was enough to keep them alive despite. He was going to have to have a talk with Wade about that, wasn’t he? But later.

Peter spun and launched himself at one of the few remaining bridge crew. Most people were not quick enough on their feet to dodge when Peter jumped at them, and as it turned out, tackling people to the floor was a really effective way to stun them. It also took very little thought on Peter’s part, and that was ideal. 

By the time they were out and sufficiently webbed, Wade had picked off the last standing and the bridge was left quiet and more bloody than Peter would have liked. With a sigh, he began the long process of checking for vitals and dragging bodies to a corner, while Wade went over to a console and started a diagnostics. The bridge should have some record of where the remaining crew were stationed, and as long as Peter could keep the bridge empty, they should have an easy time of clearing the rest of the ship. 

The dead were left in a line along the side, and the living were propped against the wall, unless they were cemented in place by Peter’s webs. Three were in need of medical assistance, and Peter used a combination of his webbing, scraps laying around, and good ol’ fashioned pressure to stabilize them as much as he could. They wouldn’t be seeing treatment for a long time, unless the mercs had their own doctor on board, and Peter hadn’t seen one on the list. 

“There’s about ten men between the weapons bays on either side of the ship, and three down in engineering. What do you want to do?” Wade asked.

Peter sat in the communications chair and let himself feel pleasantly surprised that Wade was so willing to take lead and direction from him. Yes, okay, it could have just been the money, but Wade didn’t seem like that. The job was the job whether Wade asked Peter’s opinion or not. He could have laid out a plan of his own and said, ‘This is how I’m going to do it, if you don’t like it, hire someone else.’

Maybe Wade didn’t have faith in his own strategizing ability? Or maybe he just liked working as a team more than working alone. Peter could ask about it on their date. Because they were going on a date.

“How much of the ship can be controlled from up here? How much of a crew do we actually need just to fly?”

Wade shrugged and twirled the schematic he was looking at on his screen. “We can control pretty much everything from here, but we can’t fix anything if it goes wrong. And our aim would kind of suck, because you have to tell the computer degrees and shit to move the cannons and blasters. It’s a lot easier to just swing the guns around and press a button down in the bays.”

That made a lot of sense, but it also worked more or less in their favor. As he stood up out of his seat, Peter cemented the live personnel to the walls and floor. It would keep them for a couple hours and that was more than they would need, if everything went to plan. (Hah.  _ Plans. _ ) 

“C’mon. Let’s go take out the bays.”

Without anyone on the bridge to be looking for them, it was safe enough to wander the halls. Safer, in fact, than taking the engineering tunnels just in case engineering decided to look at their cameras. That made the journey a lot faster, but they still had time. 

Time enough, Peter thought, to discuss shooting men who were already down. 

“Look, Sweetums, these aren’t the kind of guys you want getting back up,” Wade reasoned when Peter expressed his concern, “They won’t hesitate to kill you, so you shouldn’t hesitate to kill them.”

“The way I hesitated to kill you?” Peter asked.

“I’m a special case, Petey. I don’t die very well.”

That was an odd statement to make. Peter eyed Wade as they walked, wondering what was written between the lines there. ...If anything was actually between the lines at all. 

The point was: “Wade, I don’t believe in leaving a trail of bodies behind me. I’ve been very successful without murder and I don’t plan to start now. I can’t tell you how to do your job, but I can ask that when  _ I  _ take someone down, you don’t mortally double-tap them, okay?”

“Fine, fine,” Wade interrupted shifting around which of his guns were most accessible to wave his hand dismissively, “But I don’t understand. It’s not like you aren’t shooting weapons of your own. They don’t  _ look  _ like guns, but you’re covered in shit.”

“All of my weapons are completely non-lethal,” Peter tells Wade as he swaps battery packs around. Best to keep his main weapons on a full charge, especially when they were about to take on five-to-two odds.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Wade asked, leaning around Peter’s shoulder to watch his deft fingers work. They may be non-lethal, but Peter took pride in handling his weaponry as skillfully as any mercenary or soldier. He had to, if he wanted to make it out of a fight  _ without  _ killing them. “Non-lethal like what?”

It was a fair question. Most weapons, in general, were just different types of gun. Peter had to be a lot more creative, given what he was trying  _ not  _ to do. “Like tranqs, nets, bolas, this one’s a tazer,” Peter pointed at a latch on his wrist cuff. 

“A tazer? What happens if they’re a Scintak?”

Peter flipped his wrist around to a dial under a panel, “That’s why I have this to adjust. See? Thile, Human, Wonsur, Mearnon, Scintak.”

“What happens if you hit a Wonsur with the Scintak setting?”

“They die,” Peter said simply as he slid the panel back in place without changing the setting, “Which is why I won’t be giving you a joyride with this toy. C’mon, the weapons bay is just up ahead.”

“I appreciate your righteousness,” Wade gushed as he trotted behind, “but you realize my toys work a lot faster, right?”

“Sure do,” Peter chirped right back, “but  _ those  _ don’t have  _ my  _ name on them.”

“I see your point.” Wade used the screen attached to his weapon to see around the next corner, and when nobody was there, twirled right into the middle of the hall. “I wouldn’t really want the Front tracing dead bodies back to me, either.”

“No, I mean—” Peter stumbled over his words. He hadn’t planned for how he would tell Wade who he was. He was used to people either knowing already or not needing to know. “Parker. Peter Parker. As in Parker Tech? The leading biomedical technology developer in the entirety of the Front?”

Wade looked over his shoulder in a way that made Peter think he didn’t believe him for a second. Then he said, “That makes a lot more sense, actually,” and continued on like it was nothing.

Maybe it  _ was  _ nothing, to a person like Wade. Peter couldn’t know, and it didn’t really matter when Wade was unlocking the door between them and five armed mercenaries before Peter was even in position,  _ fuck.  _ Peter jumped to the other side of the door and proceeded to act like he’d meant to do that as they steam-rolled through those five-to-two odds with the help of surprise and near-indestructibility, at least on Peter’s part. 

Wade shoved all five bodies into one hidden storage compartment and marked the outside. “So we’ll remember where we put them,” he said. Peter could appreciate the forethought but was also kind of concerned that Wade expected himself to  _ forget  _ where he put  _ people.  _ Then again, they had significantly different day jobs. Mercenaries probably forgot all about  _ people  _ all the time.

With the first bay locked down, Peter and Wade moved onto the second. There was no direct path across the ship, but Wade insisted there was an  _ almost  _ direct one, and that was good enough. 

They took this one out even faster, and Peter managed to knock out the majority so that Wade didn’t kill them. This was going to be a very complicated relationship if they made it past the first date, he thought. Or, he would have to innovate non-lethal weapons that worked as fast and effectively as lasers did, and convince Wade to use those. 

...Maybe he should do that, anyway. His focus has always been on healing technology, but maybe he should take on policing technology, too. It would be a new branch of his company, manufacturing arms for people who  _ weren’t  _ himself. It could be worth it if less people had to be hurt in the first place. 

What a revolution in medical technology that would be: not needing a doctor in the first place. 

He tabled that concept for later and turned his attention right back to the task at hand: overtaking a mercenary ship. As soon as Wade had the bodies piled in storage again, Peter started toward the bridge. 

“We’re not taking out engineering?” 

Peter shook his head and began the process of re-checking over his weapons, all over again. “Engineering will understand better than anyone how much it’ll hurt to hit the surface without working engines. Whatever I do on the bridge, I trust them to have their best interest at heart. I assume you’re all not being paid enough to die for this?”

Wade shrugged, like he actually didn’t know. “Wasn’t really a consideration of mine when I took the job, to tell you the truth.”

Peter snorted. “Maybe somebody on the bridge will be awake and I can ask them.” But he probably wouldn’t. 

His choice not to take out engineering was a strategic one. Manning a ship this size with only two people was not  _ utterly  _ impossible, but it was somewhere around  _ practically  _ impossible and Peter was pretty good at impossible, but if he didn’t  _ have  _ to test his luck, he wasn’t going to. 

Peter had locked down the door to the bridge with an obscene amount of webbing, counting on the likelihood that only he was strong enough to break through it. The probability of anyone else trying was sufficiently low, but not quite zero, and Peter had a dissolving agent in his pocket so it was hardly a nuisance for him. Still, Wade looked really impressed when Peter undid all of his previous hardwork in a matter of seconds.

“Just how many toys do you have on you, exactly?” he asked.

“Probably at least fifty,” Peter answered as the door slid open, “I stopped counting when the total number mattered less than how I was going to fit it in. Take over nav, would you? Thanks.”

Wade slid into the piloting chair with ease. So far, he had done everything on this ship with ease. Peter wondered just how many years of work and training had gone into his mercenary career, if he was competent at nearly every part of this ship. “Where to, Baby Doll?”

“Nowhere, yet,” Peter leapt over to the weapons console and was already pressing buttons before his ass was properly in the chair, “When we break formation, I want it to be with a bang.”

Wade laughed and clapped, “My kind of man! But seriously, where are we going? I can pre-program some of it and make the getaway that much smoother.”

Just out of curiosity, Peter leaned his elbow on the panel in front of him and gave his full attention to Wade. “Would you also happen to know how to fix the engine if it overheated and cracked?”

“I mean, not  _ well,”  _ Wade shrugged and spun in his seat, since Peter still hadn’t answered his question, leaving him with nothing better to do, “but I could patch it with a pair of socks and a roll of tape, yeah.”

“Is there anything on this ship you  _ don’t  _ know how to do?”

Wade gave him a thumbs up. “I’m pretty shit in the med bay.”

Somehow, that was relieving. People who were too good at everything were unsettling. Peter was pretty sure he had that exact effect on most people. He turned back to his console and breathed a mental sigh of relief. “Sounds good.”

Wade sounded suspicious. “Is it, really?”

“More for my sanity than anything else, and really, who needs that?” Peter jabbed at the buttons on his panel and told him, “We’re heading down to the planet.”

Wade stopped his spin to start typing at his keyboard. “That seems like a really bad direction to go if you’re planning to get  _ away,”  _ he said, “but you’re the boss.”

“I never said anything about away,” Peter insisted, roughly estimating angles and ascensions and completely understanding what Wade had meant by shitty aim, “ _ You  _ said away. I never said away.”

“Away seemed like a justifiable assumption,” Wade countered, “given you’re not a mercenary and you’re surrounded by a bunch of mercenary ships. Or maybe you  _ are  _ a mercenary.” Wade spun in his chair to face Peter, “Is the Front hiring mercenaries now?”

Peter tore his eyes from the main vid screen and his panel long enough to stick Wade with a lame stare, “I told you who I am. Parker Tech?”

“Oh that’s right,” Wade nodded, satisfied, and spun back around, “My bad, I forgot.”

“Is your pre-programmed landing guide ready?”

“That depends,” Wade said with an air of grandiosity, “Are we trying to stay hidden or are we docking somewhere? Because one of those is easier than the other. In fact, one of those is already programmed in.”

“Docking,” Peter answered shortly, “and we’re taking the dock, too.”

“Ooh!” Wade wiggled his fingers in excitement and hovered them over the buttons on his panel, “I like your style. I like everything about your style. Especially your skin-tight suit. Nav is ready to go when you are!”

Peter… put that one away for later, and ignored the heat he could feel on his cheeks. The weapons were almost aimed, as best as he could do from here, to take out the engines of the three closest ships. The third was really reaching, but Peter figured there was no harm in trying. He was only going to get one, maybe two shots before they had to dive. Horribly aimed shots at that. The important thing was that Peter was leaving a gaping hole in the mercenary blockade. 

Barely a minute later, and Peter told them to fire. “Now, Wade!” 

The ship jerked under their feet as the auto-pilot took hold and tore them out of formation. Peter did get off one more shot before he abandoned the weapons console for the comm one, instead. The Front had specific frequencies that they liked to use, and codes to designate between friend and foe. Peter was pretty up-to-date on them, if a few steps behind. Close enough to current for the soldiers to take a closer look, if nothing else. That was all he needed, when he sent out the message to his people that he’d broken the blockade and created a weak spot, and they should bring some ships over here to start shooting at things. 

Then his attention went back to the weapons, specifically, the ones returning fire. He leaped across to a new console that he was pretty sure would tell him how their shields were doing, and when he next looked up, it was to see Wade at their weapons console, badly aiming and shooting back.

“Uh,” Peter said intelligently, “thanks.”

“No problem, sweetums!” Wade flashed a smile, “I figure we ought to finish what we started, yeah? How are the shields doing?”

“Holding pretty well, actually,” Peter replied, swiping through diagnostics screens of all their current damage. Half of it wasn’t even from the lazers; the mercs just sucked at fixing ships, apparently. 

They didn’t suck, however, at shields and weapons. Those were performing pretty fucking great. Peter spun out of his seat and took over where Wade had left the nav, “Does this need to be watched?”

“Probably,” Wade shrugged, “Computers are only as smart as the people who programmed them, after all. Wanna switch?”

Peter nodded and shoved out of his seat to relieve Wade from the weapons console, “I’m better at shooting. And I’ve never programmed a landing before.”

Wade skipped past Peter and did a full spin in the chair before even looking at the panels, “It’s pretty easy. The hard part is telling if it’s going wrong.”

“Is it going wrong?”

“Not yet!” Wade chimed, scrolling through data on the screen, “We still appear to be in the air and not going too fast, so we’re good, Honey Bunch.”

Meanwhile, Peter was having one hell of a time aiming the lasers to fuck up and/or distract the ships on either side of their previous spot in the blockade. He wasn’t doing much damage, but he could already see other Front ships moving away from the previous fighting. If he could keep some of those cannons aimed at their ship, it would give the Front that much better of a chance of doing major damage in their wake.

“What the ever-loving fuck is going on up there?!”

Peter’s main-screen view was suddenly blocked by what looked like a very angry chief of engineering. 

“Wait,” the engineercame up short, “who the fuck are you?”

“Hi!” Wade waved up at the screen from his console, “Remember me?”

The engineer looked very concerned all of a sudden, “What are  _ you  _ doing on the bridge?!”

That was a less-reassuring response than Peter might have hoped for, but at least they were being civil. “Hello, Sir. We’re going in to land on the surface.”

_ “Why?”  _

“Because Wade programmed it to,” literal answers were great for dodging inconvenient questions, “Will the ship make it?”

“Of course she will,” the engineer scoffed, “but that still doesn’t—”

“Great, thanks, see you planet-side!” Peter cheered as he side-stepped over to comms and ended the call. They might have to disable engineering after they landed but until then, things were probably fine.

“He’s gonna be so pissed.”

Peter glanced up in surprise on his way back to weapons. Wade had stayed obediently quiet once Peter started talking to the engineer, and really, he didn’t know why that was unexpected. Maybe it was the way the engineer had seemed to know Wade and not trust him on the bridge. Maybe it was the air of unpredictability that followed Wade like a tail. Maybe it was that Peter really didn’t know Wade at all. 

Peter bit his lip and wondered at himself for trusting Wade so much. Peter had been planning to, manually of course, land the ship himself, and he only met Wade, what, an hour ago? Two, at best? He seemed all in. Wade wasn’t even blinking at shooting the people who used to be his partners, and maybe that was part of Peter’s reserve. If Wade turned on them so fast and hard, who’s to say he wouldn’t turn Peter in just as quickly and ruthlessly?

...Someone would have to offer him more money first, probably, so as long as Peter kept him busy, like landing a ship, they should be fine? Also, Peter had access to all communications coming in and out of this ship, so he could see if Wade received an offer like that. Overall, he would rather just  _ trust  _ him. 

Being suspicious was  _ exhausting.  _ Looking over his shoulder all the time was tiring, and Peter didn’t want to spend the rest of this mission worrying about it. His instincts told him Wade was good, and if that changed at any point, Peter had to trust his instincts to let him know that, too. 

Successfully docking and not destroying the dock in a speeding ball of destructive flame was much more important right now. 

Thankfully, Wade seemed to have it all under control. He was spinning around in the chair far more often than Peter was strictly comfortable with, but the programmed landing appeared to be holding, so what did Peter know? 

They hadn’t been contacted for clearance codes or asked to identify themselves, so there was one of two ways this was going to go. Either they were landing in a mercenary ship, so the mercs dockside assumed they were friendly and were letting them in, or they witnessed Peter and Wade shooting at the other mercenary ships on the way down and had already decided they were hostile. 

It was a coin-flip. It could go either way. Or so Peter told himself optimistically.

Docking went surprisingly smoothly. Peter was half-expecting some angry transmission from the docking crew at that point telling them to die in a ball of fire, but no. The dock latched onto their ship with ease and, leaving the door thoroughly webbed shut once more, Peter and Wade made their way to the exit. At least the engineer would have a hard time stealing the ship back, you know, if that’s what he was going to do. 

“So, uh,” Peter began when they arrived at the outer door, “you should probably have a gun out. Or two.”

Peter blinked and there were guns in Wade’s hands, “Oh?”

“Heads, we find complacent and surprised docking crew behind that door; tails, we find twenty guns pointed at us, instead.”

“Only twenty?” Wade’s face, even through the mask, was the picture of disappointment.

Peter snorted, but recovered quickly. “I’m sorry, Baby, but I didn’t call ahead and make a reservation, so we’ll just have to do with what they’ve got.”

To his credit, Wade looked ready to take on whatever might be on the other side. “Twenty 67-YRT’s or I want my money back.”

Those were automatic and their charges could last for several hundred blasts. Peter stared at him. “Why would you want that?”

Wade shrugged. “Could be ATWO X18’s.”

“That’s it,” Peter declared. “You jinxed us. That’s like saying, ‘at least it’s not raining.’ I bet they’ve rolled up a tank in the time we’ve been standing here,  _ just  _ because you said that.”

“You bet?” Wade’s grin was slow, and Peter back-pedaled faster than a clown on a cliff on a unicycle.

“I  _ do not  _ bet they have a tank. I do bet they have guns on us, though.”

“That’s a fool’s bet,” Wade declared, then hit the button to open the outer door, “I’ll take it. Winner gets a blow job. Wait, is that too forward? Winner gets cuddles. Winner gets whatever he wants. Actually, just tell me what you want. You’re going to win, so…”

Peter wondered how much of that the mercenaries on the other side heard before everything was drowned out by the sound of laser fire and what Peter would  _ swear  _ was the Wilhelm Scream.

Only when the docking platform was silent once more did Peter turn to Wade and answer, “I want a back and neck massage.  _ After  _ our first date. Deal?”

“Signed, sealed, delivered!” Wade chirped.

That was really cute. Peter wasn’t sure if the expression on his face was a smile or a smirk, but he paid it no mind as he closed up and web-sealed the ship, “Any idea how many men are holding this dock?”

Wade shook his head, "They didn't share details on the whole fleet with every ship. I only knew how my own worked. I do know it won't be an army," he continued as they started down the ramp, "There's like, four different mercenary organizations here, and still only just enough to make the blockade happen. Armies for hire aren't  _ that  _ plentiful, you know?"

Peter nodded. He did know. It took a certain kind of person to be a merc, but all it took was a little pride and a lot of drive to be a soldier. The difference in the supply and the reinforcements between the two armies should have been staggering. The Front was an alliance of  _ planets.  _ It had an insane amount of money, bodies, and raw materials at its disposal. There were only two things really keeping them in line: the threat of rebellion from the planets already allied and the thought that in the infinite reaches of space, a bigger army might be waiting to take them out if they fractured at all. It was a bit terrifying if Peter thought about it too long.

This conglomerate of mercenary armies was giving them a run, and that spoke more to their benefactor than anything else. That there really was a limit behind the charade was really good to know, and heartening. It meant the strength of the blockade was almost entirely in the sheer number of ships, and Peter had just brought that number down by one. If he takes this dock, that doesn't reduce the blockade, but it just might reduce the mercenaries' faith in their client. 

Not that Peter was primarily motivated by taking down the entire mercenary army. All he really wanted was to break it up enough to get his supplies surface-side and provide a safe dock to receive them. After that, it was the Front's responsibility. Not his. 

Wade seemed less familiar with the technology of the port than he had been with the ship. He still knew how to open the doors, but he wasn't unconsciously walking straight to the correct panels the way he had been before. That, more than anything, told Peter just how blind they were going into this. 

Incapacitating the men on the ramp probably made a pretty big dent in the personnel manning the docking station. That was the only sunshine Peter could see through the clouds. Their first stop really needed to be a control panel of some kind, so that Peter could find his way into the blueprints and personnel roster again. 

“Wade, I need— Peter stopped short when he realized the mercenary was no longer right behind him, “What are you doing?”

“My battery is out of energy. I need a new cartridge.”

“And  _ that’s  _ how you get one?”

Wade was doubled over with his legs spread, head twisted between his thighs and arms wrapped around either side to reach one of many pockets. “Yes.” It showed off his ass  _ fantastically  _ and Peter struggled to look anywhere else.

Peter thought further explanation might be forthcoming, but when it wasn’t, he gave in and whined in confusion,  _ “Why?”  _

Cartridges swapped, Wade snapped upright with a nimble bounce and inserted the new battery into his gun, “I bend better forward than backward, duh. I’m not as flexible as  _ you.”  _

...Peter had not been expecting such a fair point. And Wade was obviously plenty flexible if he could bend that far between his own legs. But Peter wasn’t supposed to be thinking about  _ that.  _

“I need to find an information panel.” It was best to get back to work, than struggle with the memory of Wade’s ass straight up in the air. Peter was not used to feeling dumbfounded and attracted in equal measure. “Something likely to be connected to the rest of the ship’s mainframe. Keep an eye out?”

“Yes, sir!” Wade gave an enthusiastic salute, and Peter huffed a laugh despite himself.

He had been right, of course. The halls were largely deserted. However many people were stationed here, it was another skeleton crew. With nobody slowing them down, they found exactly the kind of room full of panels and screens that Peter needed. He had his personal computer wired in and was downloading all of the staff’s files when he heard Wade’s voice again.

“So where did you learn to hack like that?”

“Here and there,” Peter shrugged, still focused on the screen in front of him, “Mostly books. I learned to program for my business, then learned to hack when it became relevant to my interests.”

By the squeak, Peter would assume Wade had found another spinny chair. Funny, Peter hadn’t noticed one when they came in, “What interests are those?”

“Testing the security of my own robotics and software,” Peter answered, then gestured at the room around them with one hand, “and this.”

“Do this often, huh?”

Was it Peter’s imagination, or did Wade sound  _ interested?  _ “Often enough to need to be good at it, yeah.”

The squeak sounded again, and Peter put the thought of whatever Wade was up to out of his head while he studied the blueprints and put together another plan. There weren’t any weapons designed into the dock. This planet didn’t expect to be going to war. That didn’t mean the mercenaries hadn’t added any when they forcibly took control of the plane—

A loud  _ CRACK  _ broke Peter out of his own thoughts and he spun around, tasers aimed and ready, to find Wade had somehow peeled one of the steel panels off the wall and snapped the connections that used to keep it in place. 

“What?” Peter asked, “Why?”

“It was loose.”

“So you broke it off the wall?”

“Wanted to see why it was loose.”

Peter turned his previously aimed hand over and gestured at the wall, “And have you figured out why it was loose?”

Wade looked at him like  _ he  _ was crazy, “I only  _ just  _ got the panel off.”

Peter shook his head and… got back to his work. “I hope you’re also covering the door while you do your investigation.”

“Of course,” Wade scoffed, head half-way inside the wall, “I’m not an amateur.”

Peter refused to smile. He smiled anyway. He also had nearly everything he needed off of the computer he was attached to, and in a few seconds they could leave. 

"Ah ha!" Wade exclaimed from behind him, "Contraband!"

Figures. "What kind of contraband?"

Wade laughed and shook what sounded like a plastic bag, "Looks like drugs, Cookie Butter. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Not sure what the rest is, but you might know. Looks like fancy drugs, to me."

Peter unplugged the connecting wires and made sure his cuffs were sitting right again when he turned around, "Show me."

Wade obediently tossed the bag to him then got back to the wall, where he awkwardly tried to prop the panel back into place. As if nobody would notice that it was listing to one side.

Peter knew exactly what kind of 'fancy drugs' were in the bag. These were one of many treatments Peter's company had developed to counteract the health effects of the poisoned atmosphere, specifically the kind aimed toward undoing damage to someone already poisoned rather than prevent poisoning in the first place. 

The kind of drugs didn't matter. Their presence meant whoever hired the mercenaries or the mercenaries themselves had stocked up on Peter's meds before launching this scheme. 

Peter sighed. It was awful. Volcax was rich in unrefined fuel sources, which should have meant their economy would be well-cared for. The cheap fuel supply should have kept Caxians fed, clothed, and healthy. The Front had other sources for fuel, but cheap was cheap and it kept them invested in Volcax’s overall growth.

They weren’t a member of the alliance. Still, the United Front wasn’t in the habit of leaving entire populaces to die, especially populaces who could mine and sell valuable resources. Rather than use their military might to take over, the Front liked to offer aid tirelessly until the planet finally gave in and accepted their place among the alliance, thereby pledging their own resources to the next aid venture along the line. 

It was a technicality, but letting the planets  _ choose  _ to join or not gave them a stronger sense of unity with the rest of the Front, and lent itself better to overall peace. It was a, ‘kill them with kindness,’ strategy that had worked for a couple centuries and made the United Front that much stronger over time. 

Whoever had hired these mercenaries, and Peter genuinely hoped the Front figured that out soon, didn’t have the same level of patience. They wanted that fuel now, and were willing to let the people die to get it.

Peter’s medicine wasn’t cheap and his company didn’t manufacture it in excess. The drugs were specifically engineered for this planet, and the cost meant they only made as much as the planet needed, which is why it was concerning that the mercenaries not only had a large supply, but were hiding stashes behind loose wall panels. Were they stock-piling because they planned for the blockade to last much longer? Just how long were they trying to keep the planet hostage?

It begged the question of who  _ wasn’t  _ getting these meds, of who the mercenaries took them away from.

“You’ve never seen anything like these, before?” Peter asked Wade.

He shook his head, “I’ve seen fancy drugs, sure, but not lately, and not looking like  _ that.”  _

The medicine wasn’t just a bottle of pills. It was a minikit that contained injections and patches. Removing toxins from the body was a lot more complicated than introducing controlled substances, and a lot harder than waiting for the body to filter things out on its own. 

This was good news, though. That meant only the mercenaries on the surface had them, which meant less civilians, hopefully, were without treatment right now. 

That was… a fairly dull silver lining. 

“They definitely know we’re coming,” Peter said as he stepped out into the hall, “The dock only has one control room and there’s no reason for anyone to be anywhere else right now. Every camera in this place feeds back there.” Peter sighed, “We haven’t been hiding from those cameras.”

Wade caught up to walk beside him, “Are we hiding from them now?”

“I honestly don’t know how we would,” Peter shrugged, “I could crawl along the ceiling, but there aren’t any engineering tubes for you down here.”

The sound that came out of Wade should have been embarrassing, but the man clearly didn’t care about that. He clasped his hands and cooed, “Aww, Petey, I’m touched that you’re thinking about me!”

Peter gave him a strange look. Any good strategist  _ should  _ consider more than himself when putting their plans together, but also… Wade looked far too pleased for Peter to want to burst his bubble. So alright, Wade was reading too far into it, but Peter kind of liked it, so he let it go.

“So,” Peter continued, “I guess we’re just walking right up and knocking on the door.”

“Sounds exciting,” and Peter could hear the smile in his voice.

“But we don’t actually know where the soldiers are stationed, so we should keep an eye out on the way there.”

“Got it,” Wade sounded distracted now, but so far that wasn’t unusual. 

“They  _ probably  _ don’t have enough personnel, after the welcoming party at the dock, to be walking the halls, but maybe they’re only keeping one guy in the control room. You never know.”

“Always best to be sure.”

The utter nonsense of that reply encouraged Peter to glance briefly over his shoulder.

“You know,” he attempted to keep a casual tone, but even he could hear the tension that seeped in, “I know that my ass is a godly work of art, but you’re supposed to be watching for enemies, instead.”

Wade scoffed behind him, “If you wanted me to pay attention to anything else, you shouldn’t have worn such a delicious bodysuit. I can hardly be blamed for this.”

Peter rolled his eyes, but let it slide. Wade was going to do what Wade was going to do, and Peter supposed he should be, and honestly was, just glad to have the man on his side. This would have been a lot harder to do on his own. At the very least, Wade drew gunfire away from him, and if that was—

Spinning on his heels at the sound of laser blasts, Peter stood ready to take on… the quite dead mercenaries piled on top of each other in the doorway just behind them.

Wade shrugged and nudged Peter to keep walking, “I can multi-task.”

That was two less mercenaries to man the dock, Peter reasoned. He would much rather focus on those details than think about how he was kind of impressed. Wade was a very effective fighter, and clearly skilled at a plethora of tasks. He acted out of line, but it didn’t take away from what he could  _ do.  _ Peter didn’t particularly want to encourage the man to stare at his ass, but he also couldn’t fault him if he was plenty capable of doing his job at the same time, so where did that leave Peter’s thoughts?

On the personnel count, of course. Because if he thought too hard about Wade’s eyes following his every movement, he was going to start to like it (too late), and it was going to get him shot (probably).

Alright, so the problem wasn’t really Wade’s at all. He was perfectly capable of functioning despite his attraction, obviously. It was  _ Peter  _ who kind of sucked at that. They had a dock to siege and a control room to take over and what was Peter doing right now?

Contemplating Wade’s admiration of his ass.

He was going to get himself killed.

Or, the traitorous thought slid in, Wade might just keep him alive.

Peter decided not to physically smack himself in the face, but he did mentally shake the thoughts away. He couldn’t afford to trust Wade  _ that  _ much. This was his mission, his crusade, and he had been entirely prepared to do it on his own. Just because he didn’t  _ have  _ to didn’t mean he could start pretending that he  _ couldn’t.  _

The next pair of guns they saw came from right around the last corner before the control room. A last ditch effort at outside protection before the choke point of the control room door itself. They were, technically speaking, at a thorough disadvantage. There were cameras on the other side of that door telling their enemies exactly where they were and what they had and when they would move. 

Peter and Wade couldn’t know exactly how many bodies were waiting for them. Peter had a good estimate, based on how many people were supposed to be here and how many were not incapacitated, but those numbers had no reason to be reliable, exact, or distributed the way Peter would have distributed them. 

And yet, he didn’t feel disadvantaged at all. If anything, he felt some amount of pity for the people Wade was about to kill, because Peter was using the advantage of his company to its fullest. Beyond its full, truth be told. He was going to take him on a  _ date.  _

What an odd way for this day to unfold.

Wade and Peter took opposite sides of the door. Understandably, it didn’t open when they asked it to. Wade pried the door panel off, but Peter waved him around to switch places so Peter could do the actual hot-wiring. Maybe Wade could handle it, but Peter would feel better having control of the timing. Wade might just open the door as soon as he could and throw himself across the threshold guns blazing.

He might do that, anyway, but at least Peter would have some warning.

The feeling crept in, somewhat unwelcome while Peter was trying to clip wires and reconnect them without electrocuting himself, that he really didn’t want Wade to throw himself recklessly into the line of fire and get himself killed. Peter should have known he would care; it was the kind of thing he did all the time: care about shit it wasn’t his business to care about. Even if Wade had started as an enemy and was technically only working with him because Peter had money, Peter should have predicted the relationship wouldn’t stay professional. It wasn’t his style.

If Peter had the ability to professionally remove himself from potentially dramatic situations and let someone else handle it, he physically would not  _ be _ here.

It was hard to say which might work better, counting out loud, so the cameras couldn’t read his lips, or gesturing to Wade, so the microphones might not hear them. Not every camera installed also had a mic, but the blueprints hadn’t indicated which were which, so Peter was in the dark about whether the control room could hear them or not. 

Probably best to just… be quiet about it and hope it was too soft for their equipment to pick up. Whatever small element of surprise they had, it would be nice to maintain.

“There’s a pretty big room on the other side of this door, Wade,” Peter started to warn, “They’re expecting us, and we can’t know where they’re hiding.”

Wade nodded eagerly, like Peter was giving him advice and not trying to strategize here.

“So I want us to stay on  _ this side  _ of the door for as long as we can. It might be the only cover we get.”

“Sounds good, Boss Baby,” Wade gave him a thumbs up, then put that hand back on his gun.

Peter was torn, because that simultaneously was and absolutely was not reassuring. Was Wade taking him seriously? Except Wade had been seriously productive this entire time while appearing no more concerned than he was right now. Was this trust that Peter was working himself toward, right now? Was he choosing to  _ trust  _ a man he met less than a day ago?

Best to pack that away and figure himself out later. Very quietly, Peter started his countdown, “Three… Two… One…”

Wade started firing almost before the doors were open. As a super-powered human being masquerading as a concerned civilian, Peter was impressed by his reflexes. They almost weren’t normal. 

Blasts shot past them on either side of the door, confirming that there was, at least, more than one person inside the room. Or maybe one person with two rapid-firing guns, but probably not. Peter wanted to look around the side, but the light from inside the control room cast the doorframe’s shadow against the wall behind them, and just to the right of that shadow was an increasingly black spot of charred metal where all the laser fire was repeatedly landing and Peter wasn’t inclined to spare the wall some damage by putting himself bodily in front of it. 

Wade was having a lot more luck, because he didn’t have to lean around the side to aim. He had one of those attached screens out again and was using it to look around the corner into the room and locate the, apparently many, people shooting at them.

“How many?” Peter asked over the sound of cover fire and slowly disintegrating sheet metal.

Wade gave his screen a considering look, kind of shrugged without shrugging, and said, “Maybe five?”

Peter could deal with five. 

“No wait,” Wade said, eyebrows furrowing noticeably even through his mask, “There’s more hiding. Funny place to hide, but I doubt it was the trash can that just shot at us, so…”

Peter resisted the urge to close his eyes and pray. Making himself vulnerable, even with Wade there to watch his back, would be unforgivably dumb. 

Well, back to an unknown number of assailants, but probably not much higher than five. Peter could still work with that, he just didn’t particularly like it. “Wade,” Peter called across to him, “where should I toss my net?”

Wade made a high-pitched humming sound through closed lips as he considered his answer, then said, “Right down the middle, probably. You could literally throw one anywhere and hit somebody, though. I don’t make it a habit of complimenting my enemies—that’s a lie, I totally do—but they’ve picked smart positions.” 

Armed with this information, Peter didn’t bother to take his eyes off of Wade when he flipped his wrist around the doorframe and blindly shot his webbing into the room.

He was rewarded with a generic, “Arrgh!” and a small break in the gunfire coming through, which was likely the best opening Peter was going to get. So he took a breath, gestured at Wade to  _ stay here,  _ and launched into the room. 

It was hypocritical and Peter knew it, but he wasn’t contributing a damn thing when all he was doing was hiding behind the door frame. Wade could at least fire from where he was, but Peter needed line of sight for anything he wanted to do. Unfortunately, Wade hadn’t been exaggerating about how spread out they all were and Peter spent the first several seconds in the room doing nothing more than running across the ceiling dodging blasts coming from every angle. At least he was drawing fire away from Wade? That seemed like weak justification, even to Peter.

They were hiding well, and the consoles they were hiding behind were constructed of thick metal and took Wade’s gunfire like a champ. Too many of them had weapons and good aim and Peter’s sixth sense for dodging was going off like a malfunctioning fire alarm. Even the web he had gotten off had several holes in it and was mostly stuck to a stack of crates. He tried another, anyway.

He was mostly behind them right now. Mostly, because they were spread out  _ cleverly  _ and the room was round, so they had arranged cover that curved with the walls. The consoles were also curved, and screens covered everything but the door, so there were a lot of them to hide under. Peter had to be careful not to run in a predictable circle; it would be too easy to shoot him that way but it was also the easiest option and therefore instinctively what he wanted to do. 

Still, there were enough people in front of him that his web would actually slow them down. He had to just launch it and run, but when he looked back he saw that despite the many holes it suffered on its way down, it had stuck to two of them. Their weapons were, at least temporarily, stuck in one position and that was  _ fantastic.  _

The reduction in cover fire was enough that Peter decided to try taking someone out permanently. One of the stacks of crates along the perimeter was angled just right that Peter would be mostly out of the line of fire if there wasn’t, you know, an enemy already there to shoot at him. Seemed like as good a target as any. 

Dropping straight down would leave him static, at least from his victim’s point of view, for too long so Peter threw himself at the wall nearby and bounced behind the crates. The merc saw him coming anyway and held up their firearm to take the brunt of his hit as he came at them with his arms crossed in front of him. His full intention had been to just slam down with his whole body’s momentum and let physics figure it out for him, but the merc twisted to the side and Peter flew right by them into the screen covering that part of the wall. Ow.

The wall was very hard and the screen cracked right in two. They weren’t made of glass anymore, but they shattered just the same and Peter could only be thankful, in the half second between the collision and turning back to face his opponent, that he hadn’t hit it with his face-first. His bodysuit was resilient enough to resist being sliced through, but his skin and eyes weren’t. 

The merc already had the gun aimed right at his chest, and Peter only barely smacked it to the side in time to not get shot. The blast shattered what remained of one half of the screen though, and pieces burst away from the impact in every direction. Both of them put their hands up to guard their face and then—

The merc cried out as she fell, voice definitely feminine through the concealing helmet she wore. She had been shot from behind. Peter stared at her for a second too long as his brain caught up to the fact that Peter pressing in behind the crates meant she didn’t fit anymore, and Wade must have noticed. 

Peter dropped to his knees and pulled her close. He took her gun from her, and her secondary arm, and her third, before he checked to see if she were still breathing. She was, and Peter was glad, but that also meant he couldn’t risk just tossing her guns aside in case she woke up to use them again. Well, fuck. 

He definitely couldn’t hold onto them either, because that would just weigh him down and keep his hands full so, for lack of a better option, Peter stepped out from behind his crates and yelled, “Think fast!” as he threw them one at a time through the doorway Wade was just on the other side of. 

He ducked back behind the crates even as Wade was screaming back to him, “A gift? You shouldn’t have! It’s not even our first anniversary!”

Followed by a very confused, “What?” from one of the mercenaries to his right. 

That was as good an invitation as any. Peter spun around the edge of the crate and fired his taser in the direction of the voice. The man ducked under his console before it could hit and Peter mentally cursed and hid again himself. 

At this point, Peter was pretty sure there were only eight mercenaries in here, and one was down now. The two struggling with his web were free again. It looked like they had cut through it, which kind of sucked because it meant they had some really nice knives on them to be able to slice through his webbing. 

And did they have infinite energy cartridges or something? It seemed like the gunfire never  _ stopped.  _

“Baby boy?” He heard Wade’s voice over the general noise, and it sounded honestly concerned, “Are you okay in there?”

It hadn’t occurred to Peter that Wade would have wanted a response. His last joke had sounded like just that: a joke. “I’m fine!” he called back, and now there were definitely lasers peppering the crates and the wall beside him. The screen just a couple of feet away was utterly pulverized and Peter was not looking forward to going back out there. “In one piece and everything!”

“I’ll still love both of you if that changes!”

Peter did not know what to do with that. On one hand, wow, that was morbid. On the other, wow, that was sweet. Probably best to just return in kind, “You too, Honey!”

He really needed to take someone else out. The longer he spent on this, the longer innocents went without his meds. When he’d shot the taser, he’d noticed someone just a little bit closer toward the front of the room. He might be able to hit them from behind if he could avoid getting shot on his way there. 

Peter took a steadying breath and dropped to the floor. Reasonably, most of the laser fire coming his way was at about chest-height, but Peter was part spider and could scuttle along the floor with the best of them. 

He was already most of the way to his target when anybody noticed, and his sixth sense made him leap the rest of the distance to avoid getting shot in the ass. His victim didn’t see him coming and Peter slammed them against the console before pulling both of them under it to fight it out in peace.

They were winded, but still threw a sluggish punch at him. Peter barely dodged in the tight confines they were in. He was flexible but that didn’t matter if there was nowhere to go. He returned that with a punch of his own that they blocked with their firearm and although Peter’s fist went right through it, he didn’t hit the merc. 

And then they twisted the gun around, with Peter’s wrist still trapped inside, to put him in a joint lock and that was not okay. They weren’t supposed to be that smart. Peter couldn’t finesse his way out of it, so he grabbed the broken edge of the gun and yanked on it, pulling both the firearm and his arm out of the merc’s grip. Almost instantly, the gun smacked into the underside of the console and Peter’s hand wrenched out of the shredded hole at an odd angle and that didn’t feel good at all but his hand was free and the gun was toast, so, success?

Before he could celebrate properly, a hand gripped his throat and Peter choked in surprise. He shouldn’t have been. All things considered, it was the smart thing to do. His bodysuit did protect him from some of it. The turtleneck was still armored, even if it wasn’t reinforced, but pressure was pressure and Peter couldn’t speak past the hand on his throat. 

Peter watched as they began to reach for their second, smaller firearm, and acted as quick as he could. The mercenary’s gloves were thick with plating but Peter’s hands were nimble and strong and he got a grip around their little finger and pulled, peeling the hand away from his neck just in time to have the barrel of a new gun pointed at his face. 

He turned over the hand he already had a grip on, causing those joints to lock, and swatted the smaller gun away with his left hand, keeping sticky and grabbing their wrist so that he could maybe not have to swat it away again two seconds from now. 

Now neither of them had any free hands and absolutely no room to move and get leverage with them. It was both convenient and very inconvenient but as long as he couldn’t be shot, Peter would count his blessings. Plus, he was definitely the more flexible of the two, and used that to his advantage when he lifted his foot and pressed it underneath the helmet of his attacker, solidly against their windpipe. 

Turnabout was fair play and also, all things considered, it was probably the least violent way to knock them out. Otherwise Peter was going to have to kick them really hard in the head and concussions were no joke. The thing was, choking took like,  _ whole minutes  _ to pass out from, if they got a breath first, and there were still six other mercenaries in here shooting constantly. Seven if the first one woke up and Peter just prayed she didn’t. 

Man, lack of element of surprise really made for a much harder fight.

The mercenary’s grip loosened, and Peter stripped them of their second firearm. It looked like this one didn’t have a third, but they had a whole stockpile of cartridges and knives. If everyone behind a console had  _ that  _ many cartridges, it was no wonder the laser fire wasn’t letting up. As soon as the mercenary went limp, Peter grabbed the two guns, the whole case of cartridges, and the knives and risked his neck to throw all of them, one by one, out the door.

Between express delivery number three and four, Peter saw Wade grab for the pack of cartridges in the hall. Despite his plethora of weaponry all over him, he must have been running low. Well, that worked out for the best then, didn’t it?

Wade called to him, “I take it that means you’re still good?”

The joke was too easy. It was right there. Peter had to take it. “You haven’t met me between the sheets, yet!”

“I’m liking your style more and more, Baby Boy,” Wade replied. 

Yeah, and Peter was liking Wade’s, too. 

Peter took the time to scan the room for another advantageous target. There was none. Even this position was vulnerable and it was only a matter of time before someone took the opportunity of all the cover fire to dart out and shoot at him. Peter’s suit could take a handful of hits but he didn’t want to. Laser fire  _ hurt.  _

There was nothing for it. Peter had to pick someone or else wait under this desk for Wade to run out of cartridges again and be overrun. “FOR CHAOS AND GUMMI BEARS!” Peter yelled, hoping Wade got the message that he was going to need cover fire from that, and ran around the inconveniently placed (Or conveniently, if you were one of the mercs) supply crates to dive under the next console down the line. 

Wade must have, because nothing actually hit him, despite the carpet of laser fire all around. Also the returning cry of, “FOR CREAM SODA AND ANARCHY!”

Maybe the battle cry had been a bad idea, because the next mercenary saw him coming from a mile away and was already shooting at him before he was close enough to make a grab for the gun. Thankfully, tasers worked at a distance, so Peter could return fire even as he dodged and tumbled behind the new cover. 

It was close quarters though, and Peter didn’t have enough room to properly maneuver. He and the mercenary cried out almost simultaneously as his taser and their laser hit their respective marks. Peter was thankful it was just a graze on his hip, and tore his eyes away from his convulsing attacker to make sure it really was just a graze. 

“Honey?” Wade yelled, and it almost didn’t sound like a question at all. His voice was strained, controlled, but definitely concerned, “What was that?”

“Nothing!” Peter called back to him, pleased to see that his body armor held and all Peter was feeling was some blunt trauma and a bit of a burn. He couldn’t tell Wade, because telling Wade told the whole damn room, and Peter would much prefer it if they all thought he was invincible. Still, a joke was always warranted, “Swim trunks are just as good as briefs, right?”

“I’m coming in!” 

“No don’t!”

One, that was exactly what Peter did not want. Two, he told the whole fucking room what he was doing before he did it. If every gun wasn’t aimed at the doorway right now, then Peter would be disappointed in them. Peter would actually rather like to be disappointed, right now. 

The absolute  _ explosion  _ of blaster fire told Peter that Wade was following through. Damn it! He couldn't just stay huddled under the console while a man who didn't even care how this battle turned out died for him. With that thought in mind, Peter threw himself out from his cover and right into the fray.

Well, not  _ right  _ into the fray. He still dodged what lasers he could. His shoulders and left foot were singed by the time he reached another merc and tackled their legs out from under them. He got lucky when their helmeted head knocked hard against the edge of the console they were set up beside. They were dazed, if not already unconscious, and Peter checked them over to find out which even as he stripped them of their weapons.

That was only four left, if Wade hadn't had any successes yet. Peter spun on his heel to see what he couldn't have from under the high-tech desk.

In charging the room and flushing them out, Wade had already taken down  _ two  _ of the remaining mercs. Peter didn't consider his actions before launching himself at the nearest one, if only to get them to stop firing at Wade. 

Whose armor seemed to have a brighter shine and a darker stain of red than usual. Peter pretended it was all in his head, and tried to focus on the man he was liberally coating in web and adhering to the floor. 

His web had to be getting thin. He had used it on almost everything and while he had a lot, it wasn’t infinite. Still, he couldn’t chance this guy having a knife on him and wiggling around until he could slice himself out. Peter had to make sure all pockets were glued shut and his hands couldn’t wander, and so he anticipated running out soon.

Peter looked up to search for Wade, even though the relative quiet of the control room told him the fight was already over. Whatever Wade had done, it had been less noisy than Peter going full spider on the guy underneath him. 

His armor was definitely wet. But maybe it was somebody else’s blood. Immediately, Peter was on his way to Wade’s side, stepping over every mercenary between them and in one notable case, an entire console because it would take too long to go around. 

“I’d make a joke about seeing the other guy,” Peter said as he got close, “but, I mean, they’re all right here, so…”

Wade smiled, Peter could see the pulling at the sides of his mask, but somehow it still looked more like a grimace, and he wondered if that was just his imagination again. “It’s a good joke, and I admire your desire to pull it off, but I’m pretty sure I look worse than they do.”

Considering that at least one mercenary was sporting holes in their chest and burns over what was left of it, Peter was concerned. That was exactly the kind of thing he had  _ not  _ wanted to hear. With hands he had to concentrate to keep steady, Peter reached for Wade. 

“I’m not a doctor in the traditional sense, but I’m pretty good at medical science…”

Wade scoffed, and before Peter could finish his sentence, unbalanced and stumbled into the pile of crates behind him. Peter’s reflexes meant he could keep Wade from knocking his head into anything, but only if he let the rest of Wade’s body sink clumsily to the floor. Wade was talking the whole way down, “I don’t need a doctor. I just need a minute.” He paused and shifted a little, and then his voice was strained, “Maybe five. I’ll be right as rain in ten, tops.”

“Wade,” Peter made it sound like a reproach, as if he could tell Wade to stop being hurt and the man would wave it off like any other joke. He didn’t know what to say after, though. No words seemed to fit, so Peter kneeled down and reached for him. There had to be something he could do. 

“Don’t worry, Sugar Bear,” Wade said. Peter glanced up, but didn’t reply. It sounded like Wade was trying to head off whatever might come out of his mouth next. “I promise. Ten minutes.”

“You’re covered in holes,” Peter said quietly, disbelievingly. He gingerly pressed his fingers around the outside of a breach in Wade’s armor, trying to confirm whether there was flesh underneath or the gaping abyss it looked to be. That was impossible. How was Wade still breathing?

“Yeah, as I said, no biggie.”

“Wade,” Peter insisted, “there are  _ multiple  _ holes in you. There’s no way you’ll be okay in ten minutes!” Peter pressed his fingers to Wade’s throat to feel his pulse. It was weak and racing. “Your heart can’t take this. We have to stop the bleeding.”

“It’ll stop,” Wade said nonsensically. Peter hoped he didn’t mean when he ran out of blood. “Don’t freak out.” Peter thought he was doing a pretty damn good job of that, considering the circumstances, thank you very much. “Ten minutes.”

Peter didn’t have any clothing on him that he could stuff the wounds with. The mercs they had taken down weren’t wearing tons of layers, either. Everything was armor and bodysuits and more armor. “Don’t lie to me, Wade,” Peter chastised, even as he looked over his gadgets. Of course, he had bandages to go over wounds, but the only thing he could stuff inside was his webbing, and as that dissolved, who knew what it would do to Wade’s body? 

“I’m not, Baby,” Wade insisted. His breathing was a struggle, Peter could tell. If Wade were still on his feet, he’d be swaying. “It’ll reset. Don’t freak out.”

“What will reset?” Peter asked, pulling his gaze away from the wounds he was trying to keep pressure on. “Wade!” But the merc’s eyes were glassy and unfocused, and then his breathing hiccuped before it seemed to stop altogether. “Wade, talk to me!” Peter didn’t want to take a hand away from the wounds, but he had to if he wanted to check Wade’s pulse.

He didn’t  _ really  _ want to check Wade’s pulse though, for fear of what he might learn.

But he was Peter Parker of Parker Tech and he was not going to withhold treatment because he was  _ scared.  _

Peter pressed his fingers to Wade’s neck again, and considered his options. He could start compressions. But once he started them, he couldn’t stop them, and no help was coming to relieve him. The more time he spent here, with Wade, the less time he would have to get a ship down here with supplies, much less to treat patients. As much as he wished it, a taser wasn’t going to do shit with Wade’s heart completely stopped like it was. He could…

What?

Drag Wade’s body around with him and hope it miraculously came back to life?

The hand against Wade’s throat became a heavy grip on his shoulder as Peter leaned into his body, suddenly finding it a lot harder to sit up straight. Checking his pulse would have been a lot more bearable if there had been a pulse to find. Peter stopped putting pressure on the largest of the holes and let that hand settle on Wade’s other shoulder. He’d failed him.

Peter had talked Wade into this with the promise of something so mundane as money and now the man had nothing. And it was Peter’s fault! He should have known he would feel more for this man than he ever intended as soon as he agreed to spend any time with him at all. Peter always cared about people. That part was a given.

But then Wade had been so charming. Peter wasn’t used to people flirting back at him in the middle of a crisis. He barely knew this man at all, but he’d been really starting to want to. 

He still had a winning bet to claim from him.

Peter sighed as he leaned over the still body to rest his forehead against a relatively clean spot on Wade’s chestplate. He closed his eyes, steadied his breath, and prepared to say goodbye. He still had work to do. People still needed him. And there was nothing left he could do for Wade. 

Slowly, sadly, Peter lamented, “We were supposed to go on a date.”

“We still can.”

Peter bolted upright in shock. His fingers clenched on either shoulder as Peter resisted the urge to shake him and remind him he was dead. “Your heart stopped!” Oh, well, guess he couldn’t help the reminding.

Wade really seemed wholly unconcerned, if a little sluggish to respond, “It does that.”

Hearts didn’t stop and then just restart on their own. Brains didn’t go undamaged after that long without oxygen. “You bled out!”

“I bleed in, too!” Peter almost hit him for that.

But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t dare. Peter was far too thankful and far too dumbfounded to raise his hand to Wade now. Gingerly, Peter poked and prodded at the holes again, because he hadn’t hallucinated them, had he? 

No. They were still there. But they weren’t  _ holes  _ anymore. Most of them were fleshy red masses of raw meat, growing smaller and smaller as skin crept in from the sides, right before Peter’s eyes. 

“What is this?”

“My superpower!” Wade grinned, but didn’t make any effort to move from where he was slumped against the crates. “I can heal from anything. Even death. It’s actually kind of annoying. And disorienting. The other side is a  _ real  _ trip.” 

Peter stared, uncomprehending. That was impossible. Nobody healed from  _ death.  _ Peter would know; he kept trying to cure it. “You’re insane.”

“That too!” Wade pointed at Peter, and if he wasn’t in shock and refusing to process it, he might swear Wade was doing finger guns. “It could be a side effect of the rapid healing, it could be a side effect of the trauma that did this to me, we might never know! That last part’s not a joke. We probably will never know.”

Peter pressed his hands to either side of Wade’s head and tried to feel through his mask whether anything was… not right.

Wade’s grin softened, and so did his voice. “I appreciate your concern, but I swear this is normal.”

Peter couldn’t feel anything, and he doubted Wade would agree to remove his mask so Peter could feel around unimpeded, so he let his hands slide forward to frame the man’s face instead. He swallowed thickly. “I thought you were dead.”

Wade pressed his hands to Peter’s shoulders, steadying him. Peter didn’t realize how much that would help until he’d done it. “I was dead. But now I’m better.”

Peter huffed a laugh and shook his head, “Alright, fine. I thought I’d lost you.”

“You won’t lose me,” Wade promised with a squeeze of his hands, “Not so long as you want me. I’m very hard to lose.”

Peter slumped in his seat, finally letting the relief take him over. This was real. Wade was enhanced, just like him, and immortal, which was very much not like him, and Peter was going to ask him  _ so  _ many questions when they got out of here, especially about that other side comment, but all of that could wait. Right now, Peter was just going to bask in the knowledge that Wade would be okay. 

“Did you set a timer?”

“What?” Peter blinked back out of his blissful daze and stared at Wade, confused all over again.

“The ten minutes. Did you time it?”

Peter was sure his expression said everything he was thinking about how inappropriate and unhelpful that would have been, and how crazy Wade was for even asking.  _ “No.”  _

Wade looked unimpressed. “Then how are we supposed to know if I kept my promise or not?”

Peter shook his head in disbelief and rolled to his feet, “Wade, as far as I’m concerned, you kept your promise in full. Are you able to stand?” Peter offered Wade his hand to help, if he wanted it.

Wade grabbed for it eagerly, but barely used it, hopping to his feet largely under his own power. “Sure can!”

This was miraculous. Wade’s heart wasn’t beating just minutes ago, and here he was, on his feet, as strong as ever. Peter grabbed for Wade’s hand, and pressed his fingers to Wade’s wrist, just to feel his pulse. It was strong. It was normal. 

“Uh,” Wade looked down at his hand, limp in Peter’s grip, “I’m all for holding hands, but most of my guns require both of mine, so…”

Peter let go suddenly and shook himself. He hadn’t even asked permission before he did that! Just because Wade had temporarily died didn’t mean he had given up his rights to personal space. Besides, Peter could be thankful the man was still alive later. They still had supplies to land. 

All the same.

“I’m really glad you’re not dead,” Peter confessed, just to make sure Wade knew before they got back to work.

“Me, too, Sweetums.” Wade checked over his guns and raided the mercs’ cartridges, but he looked back at Peter all the time, and it made him feel like he was never very far from Wade’s attention. “I’d never forgive myself if I had to cancel our date.”

Fuck, and now Peter was really quite looking forward to that stupid date. Their relationship had escalated very quickly. 

Alright. Now. They had the control room, it was time to act like it. Peter offered Wade a sweet smile of thanks as he made his way to the center console. It was probably where all the main functions were, but Peter would have to press some buttons to find out.

He, uh. Had to move some of the bodies out of the way to effectively maneuver the room. The ones still conscious glared heatedly at him, but most were out like a light or actually dead and that didn’t make it any less weird. 

He set all of the docking bays to automatic, so that no one would have to be here to help ships land, and sent out a message to the United Front forces beyond the blockade. There was a dock down here, and it was friendly.

He received some messages back, and he decoded and replied between efforts to hunt down the location of the civilians who should have been manning this dock. Normal people had just been minding their own business, doing their day jobs, when an army had descended upon them, stolen their life-saving medicine, and herded them into… there!

There was a quarantine area, for temporary housing of incoming parties who needed to be held separate until other arrangements could be made, and the entirety of the dock’s staff appeared to be shoved into that one, moderately sized room. It looked like they had been there a while. It looked like some were injured. 

Peter could unlock the room from here. But he wasn’t going to do that. 

He could imagine few worse things right now than confused, afraid, injured civilians walking around corridors aimlessly. They would either be looking for the mercs, or looking to leave, and Peter wasn’t looking forward to getting mistaken and shot or having to chase down his patients on their getaway. 

“Wade,” he called across the room. His own personal mercenary came up behind him and rested his chin on Peter’s shoulder. That was cute. He liked it. “I’m going to need you to stay here. Some ships will be coming down and you’ll need to man comms to keep them from running off again, but I also need you to watch this display specifically. When you see me outside of this room, press this button here. It will unlock the door for me. Got it?”

A tentative hand pressed against Peter’s side, “But I don’t wanna split up, Honey Bun.”

Peter indulgently rested his head against Wade’s for the barest of seconds. “It’s the best option, Red. Without you here, the chances of either part of this next trick going south are too high. I need to help those people, and I need those ships to land. Both are facilitated by you being here to keep an eye out.”

“Okay,” and Peter could hear the pout in his voice, “but only because you sound really smart and I can’t figure out where the holes are.”

“That’s because there are no holes,” Peter said magnanimously, “only open portals to new opportunities.”

Wade snorted and shoved away from Peter. “Wow. Did you read that on the back of a cereal box?”

Peter swatted back at him and rounded the console on his way to the door. “I’m glad you appreciate my humor. You wouldn’t believe how many times I say a thing like that and someone takes me seriously.”

“I have seen Death,” Wade reminded as he took Peter’s place at the display, “I might be insane, but I have a good handle on serious.”

Peter didn’t want to be walking backwards out of this room, but Wade was hard to turn away from. “Do you? Coulda fooled me.”

“Coulda fooled everyone,” Wade raised, pointing pointedly at Peter with his eyebrows doing  _ something  _ behind his mask that Peter couldn’t really make out, but somehow that made the effect better, “Coulda fooled myself.”

“On that note, I’m out!” Peter gave Wade a sloppy salute and spun out into the corridor. “Keep dinner warm for me!”

“Bold of you to assume I cook! Don’t die, Baby. Come back to me.”

“I see what you did there!”

“I’m glad you have good taste in music but you should really stop shouting down the hall! Someone might hear you! Like, besides me!”

Peter wanted to reply, he had one right on the tip of his tongue. But Wade was right, and chances were Wade wouldn’t be the one to stop, insanity and all, so Peter decided to be the adult and put his mind back to his mission. 

The halls were still quiet. Most of the mercenaries were probably in the control room, and now were incapacitated one way or the other. Peter had no trouble making it to the quarantine chambers; he still had his map from earlier. 

When he arrived outside, he looked up at the security camera across the hall and gave it a warm smile and a wave. He heard the locks holding the door release, and turned his hand into a grateful thumbs up. It was nice to know nothing had gone sideways for Wade in the time that he left.

Not that he didn’t trust Wade to handle himself, but worry was worry and people always worried about the people they cared about and he cared about Wade now so it was only natural that he would- Peter shook himself to stop the avalanche in his head. That was some of the most circuitous thinking he’d had in a while. Wade was fine. Wade would  _ be  _ fine. Wade was apparently unkillable. 

Unlike the people beyond that door, who had heard the locks unseal just like he had and were opening the door, curiously and carefully. Peter made sure none of his weapons looked anything like weapons and held his hands up to put them at ease.

“Hey,” Peter started, “Are you guys okay? Did the mercenaries hurt you?” 

His words were careful. They were casual, they were calm, and they very specifically identified Peter as a separate entity from, ‘the mercenaries,’ which was how he hoped to avoid being mobbed by terrified and angry civilians who might be looking for revenge. 

“Who are you?” a woman asked.

“Oh thank God!” said someone behind her.

“Carla broke her arm!” A young woman with wide eyes rushed right up to him, but stopped a smart distance away. “They shoved her and she fell wrong and we haven’t been able to set it or anything!”

That sounded pretty pressing, and Peter wasn’t a doctor. Like that, anyway. Her best bet was to get out of here. “She needs a hospital. Is there one nearby?” He looked away from her and skipped his eyes over anyone who looked to be a little older. Someone who might be a little more calm in a crisis.

The same woman who first spoke, spoke again. “We have one a couple blocks away. You didn’t say who you were.”

Peter nodded, because he hadn’t. “I’m Peter Parker. I invented the machines that stabilize your atmosphere.”

An older man’s eyes widened to the size of saucers, “What are you doing  _ here?”  _

“I came to help,” Peter shrugged, “That’s what I do.”

Once the civilians generally accepted that he was who he claimed to be, Peter sorted the minor injuries from the major injuries and patched up the ones that he could. He catalogued the ones he couldn’t so that if he was asked, he could pass the information along to any medical personnel involved. But, well, chances were Peter wasn’t going to be interacting with any of them.

Peter had some of his detoxing patches with him and he gave those to the sickest among them. They would also need the oral medications, but Peter had prioritized battle over cargo when he chose this suit to wear on this mission. He would have to wait for the first ships to dock to be of any more help to them. 

The healthiest helped move the major injuries out of quarantine, and Peter charted their path outside. They had ways to get to work, so he assumed they had ways to get to the hospital. The biggest obstacle in their path was a locked door, and Peter took care of that in seconds. He was feeling good, doing his part to move healing along, even if he couldn’t set a bone. 

He was contemplating moving everyone left, including the sickest, out to the dock to put them closer to the medications that were coming when he spotted Wade jogging toward him down the hall.

What the fuck? He left his post? Bad mercenary. Peter… hoped nothing had gone horribly wrong. “Wade?” he called out ahead of him, “Is something wrong?”

“Something’s good!” he answered, and Peter mentally sighed in relief and went back to making pet jokes he would not be saying aloud, “One ship has landed and a second is docking now. I told some of those military guys how to get to the control room so they could take over.”

That was actually very good. Peter changed his pet berating to pet praise. 

“My supplies?” Peter asked, the only thought in his head that was appropriate to voice.

“On the second ship,” Wade confirmed. “They said something complicated about transmissions and escorts and I don’t know what medical supplies have to do with TV and hookers but I don’t judge.”

Peter bit his lip and chanted to himself to keep a straight face. These civilians looked up to him and he couldn’t blow that now. 

“Help me line up the patients,” Peter finally said, when he was sure the sounds his mouth would make wouldn’t be embarrassing, “I’ll teach you how to apply the patch so you can take that over when they get here.”

Wade fell into step beside him. “And you need to tell your army guys to lighten up. Not a single one of them appreciated my creative and complimentary permission to dock communications.”

Peter stopped to eye Wade up and down, wondering if that was another joke or a serious request. Eventually he stood up straight and faced him squarely, “Okay, Wade, and this is a real question, mind. Did any of your mercenary guys appreciate your ‘creative and complimentary’ messages, either?”

Wade shrugged, “Only on days that didn’t end with ‘y.’”

So that was a no.

When the supplies arrived, they came with help. Peter hadn’t been expecting that. His request to his buddies on the ship was only to retrieve the supplies from the ship he had arrived on and deliver them here. He hadn’t anticipated several of the soldiers wanting to disembark and help with dispensing and administering, although, in hindsight, he really should have. They had joined the army for a reason, after all. Generally, they wanted to do good.

Everything moved very quickly after that. The escort ship was intending to stay on the base and defend it against falling back under mercenary control. That meant they could continue to give the medications to the people who needed them, and Peter didn’t even have to teach any civilians how to get that done. 

As everything fell into a sort of order around him, Peter bothered to check the time. If he hadn’t accomplished his mission within the original parameters, he had been planning to be left behind and continue on his way. He had friends he could call and they would arrange a rescue if they had to. Breaking the blockade had been more important than schedules.

As it turns out, Peter was still within the original timeframe. If he could get off his planet and back to his ship, he could leave on the same ship he came in on. 

Except.

Wade did not have clearance to wander around on military vessels. He was, in fact, a criminal in the eyes of the United Front and they would not be letting him waltz out the door if they could stop him. And they  _ could _ stop him. Just because Wade couldn’t die didn’t mean they couldn’t knock him down temporarily and lock him in a room before he bounced back. 

Peter remembered Wade stumbling backwards into those crates. He would never forget it.

So, uh, this meant Peter found himself with a new challenge to overcome. A challenge he never anticipated having to face. 

He pulled Wade away from the room full of patients and military personnel. They weren’t needed here, anymore. They needed to come up with a plan.

Peter leaned his head close to Wade’s in the hall and spoke quietly. Their plan would be sunk before it ever tried to float if anyone overheard them. 

“You’re a mercenary.”

Wade understandably sounded confused, “Yes.”

“That means, right now, you’re a war criminal.”

“Sounds about right.” He was way too calm about that.

“Any ideas how to get you onto a military transport without anyone figuring that out?”

At which point, Wade caught on to Peter’s thoughts. It would have been kind of surprising if he didn’t. “No good ones,” he confessed.

Peter hated to suggest it, but desperate times. “Think if we knocked out one of the guys, you could change into uniform and sneak by?” That would only work for so long. Most of the military knew who was supposed to be in their unit and a new face wouldn’t go unnoticed indefinitely.

But Wade was shaking his head, anyway. “I love that you want to undress me already, Sweet Thing, but my face sticks out too much. They’d catch me right away.”

Peter furrowed his brows. How could anyone stand out  _ that much.  _ Was Wade purple under there? Peter didn’t really care re: their date, but he was kind of concerned. It was probably part of what made him immortal. That was a story Peter was going to have to get out of him soon. Although, probably more a discussion for the second or third date than their first. To be polite.

“I would suggest straight up sneaking on, but military transports tend to be more organized and clean than the mercs’. There aren’t really that many places to hide, and lots of bodies to see you.”

Wade gripped Peter’s arm suddenly, and spoke low, “I have an idea.”

He was too excited. This was going to be a bad idea, even if it worked. “Oh?”

The mask was pulling again, which meant Wade’s smile was huge. “They’re going to be suspicious of anything that looks like it could be hiding a body. So we have to hide me where a body  _ couldn’t  _ be.”

Oh yeah, that sounded very bad.

About ten minutes later, Peter’s mind had not changed. 

“Oh my God, Wade! That’s not going to grow back. Wade,  _ how  _ is that going to grow back?”

“Don’t worry about it! Just trust me, it will!”

“I can’t believe I’m participating in this. I can’t believe I’m allowing you to do this.”

“Get used to it, Sweet Cheeks! I’m gonna talk you into a lot of bad ideas from now on.”

When Wade suggested hiding inside a very small crate, Peter had thought he might be some kind of contortionist or something. Which was stupid, Peter thought to himself, because Wade had literally told him he wasn’t as flexible as Peter. Wade had  _ told him.  _

Wade had not let Peter be in the room when he folded himself inside a large, rigid duffel-size suitcase and upon going inside to fetch him, Peter understood why. 

Wade had stripped below the waist and packed his armor and weapons with him, then apparently removed both of his legs and disconnected his shoulders so that everything fit,  _ comfortably,  _ Wade says, inside. 

Peter wanted to spend some energy on contemplating the mottled skin covering the bare legs tucked haphazardly in the corner, but all of his brain cells were taken up with worry over the still-attached parts of Wade, crammed into a tiny box.

“Bones don’t grow back, Wade,” Peter heard himself say.

Wade’s head was shoved against the side of the box at a very odd angle, but Wade insisted he wasn’t uncomfortable in there. Peter had no idea how. “Mine do. Remember the blaster holes from earlier? Do you really think all those shots missed my ribs? Did you notice any ribs missing when you felt me up after? Think, Petey, you’re a scientist. My bones grew back.”

Holy shit. His bones grew back.

Peter went into a kind of shock over this information. He knew of at least one scientist back home who would literally kill to know how to recreate Wade. That man must never know about this man. Ever.

Wade snapped his fingers and Peter focused on him again. “Close the lid, would you? I can’t snap the locks from the inside.”

Peter… slowly shut the lid, trying not to think too hard about what he was letting Wade make him do. It was a losing battle, but actually the more he thought about it the better he could rationalize it. If it was anyone else, this would be absolutely horrifying. But Wade had done it to himself, and Wade was going to grow it all back, heal it all up, so truthfully… no one was getting permanently hurt, here. 

And it really was a good way to sneak him past anyone who might suspect anything. There was no way a normal human would have fit in this case.

Peter snapped the latches shut and lifted the box. It was heavy, but not too heavy for Peter. He left the room, considering how it was heavier than his medical supplies would have been, but lighter than his cases full of tech usually were. It was plenty believable that Peter was traveling with some kind of supplies in tow, and the transport he was going to board now had not seen him before he was planetside so they wouldn’t know he had arrived with nothing on him but the clothes on his back.

All in all, it was a really good plan, and Wade had been very right. Still, Wade was technically in three pieces right now and they were leaving two of those pieces behind. That was really fucked up.

Peter checked on the case only a couple times before he told himself to  _ stop looking.  _ Every time he looked down, he drew attention to it, and it would be weird for him to examine his own luggage over and over like he was surprised it was still there.

He  _ was  _ surprised, though. The case wasn’t leaking blood. It should be, since Wade had cut off his legs, and Peter was still not really okay with that at all. All the same, the case wasn’t leaking anything. Wade was staying very quiet. Everything looked incredibly normal for a situation that was anything but.

Peter’s heart was pounding twice as fast as every step he took. He waved cheerily and greeted politely anyone he saw on his way to the ship. He made sure to smile extra bright at anyone he actually knew. He acted as normal as he could possibly act. It was exhausting.

Peter tucked himself away in an unused, unassuming corner and set the case gently at his feet. According to the soldiers who had taken charge of the dock, this ship would be taking off in the next twenty minutes. The supplies had been unloaded and there was no reason for it not to return to the battle above. 

Peter had only brought one shipment of supplies, so the planet would have to wait for him to return all the way home and set up another shipment before any more relief would be coming.

And since Peter absolutely could not be sighted talking softly to his own luggage, he instead started taking notes about that next shipment on his wrist. It was a lot harder than if he had a full keyboard, but that only meant it would pass the time better. 

There was no way Wade wouldn’t get bored in that case. He didn’t even have a tiny computer to take notes on or a huge company to manage in his head. Peter vowed that when they got back to his original ship, he would find some quarters to hole up in and let the man out for a while.

What that meant for getting back into the box, Peter wasn’t going to think about.

Exiting the atmosphere went smoothly. No one on this ship was going to question why he was here, unlike the many ships he’d leap frogged on to get to the planet in the first place. They knew who he was and what his involvement in their temporary mission had been. Which meant none of them thought it was funny when he asked to talk to the captain, or requested that they get within range of his transport and send him on over.

Peter was briefly scared they would be found out when he stepped up to the transmission platform. Technically speaking, the operators could read what the contents of the beam were, specifically whether the material was organic or inorganic. They could, in theory, know that Peter had a person in his box. 

As he arrived on the other ship though, no alarms were raised, no questions were asked, despite the new, previously unseen luggage, and Peter let out a controlled breath of relief when they let him walk away, case securely in hand. 

_ This  _ ship was less friendly. This ship was doing him a favor only as long as he stayed out of their way. Finding someone to bum a room off of was a little bit harder, but not any harder than breaking through a blockade and taking over a docking station, so Peter was confident he could get it done. 

Sliding into the nondescript, mostly bare guest quarters, Peter finally relaxed. They would have another small mission getting Wade disembarked on his homeworld, but that would be the easiest part of all of this. Peter didn’t usually get debriefed or scanned on his way off military vessels. He used to. After a few years, everyone largely agreed it was a waste of their time.

Thus, Wade was, for all intents and purposes, home free. As long as his legs grew back.

Peter set the case down and opened the lid.

Wade gasped for air and that was the first time Peter realized his oxygen would be in low supply in there. Oh shit. 

“Fuck,” Peter cursed, “Are you okay? You didn’t die, did you?”

“Nope!” Wade chirped, but it was a raspy chirp. Peter felt awful. “At least, I don’t think so. I went to sleep. I could have died in my sleep. It’s been known to happen.”

Nothing about that made Peter feel better. He dug around Wade, removing the armor and weapons that Wade had packed himself in with, then gently pried his torso up and out of the box. 

Peter settled them on the available bed and couldn’t help the way his eyes raked over Wade’s injuries. Wade was already popping his shoulders back in, and his thighs had odd little nubs sticking out of what used to be a raw wound. Just like before, Peter prodded at them with curious fingers. The whole area was covered in new skin, which explains why the case never leaked blood. This was absolutely fascinating. It was also utterly horrible. 

Wade made a pleased sound, and Peter realized his rubbing of those odd nubs might be a little less professionally diagnostic than he intended. Peter didn’t remove his hand. 

“I can’t believe you just cut off your legs.”

Wade rolled his shoulders to make sure they were working properly again, then used them to shrug. “It seems a lot worse than it is.”

Peter shook his head. There was no way it was not just as bad as it sounded. “It had to have hurt.”

“I mean, yeah?” Wade said, but he remained unconcerned. “But it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever felt. And you get really used to the pain. It’s not a big deal anymore.”

Peter was now more determined than ever to keep rubbing softly at Wade’s healing wounds. Nobody should ever get used to the kind of pain that sent a normal person into shock. That was awful. There was no way to rationalize that. It was doubly awful that Wade had to, because he lived it. 

“Do you have a United Front ID?” Peter asked. Wade probably wasn’t going to follow his line of thinking, but he’d get there eventually.

Sure enough, Wade’s face furrowed in confusion under the mask. “I did for a while, yeah. Why?”

“Less tape to get through when I hire you officially.”

“Officially?” Wade echoed. He still sounded confused, but also, maybe, a little awed?

“I don’t know what you’re going to do, yet,” Peter said, “but I’ll figure something out. I can’t have my boyfriend doing jobs on the other side of the galaxy, can I? How are we supposed to have lunch dates that way?”

Peter was watching closely, and somehow it was the idea of lunch dates that got Wade’s expression to clear and his body to sit up. “Can they be at little outdoor cafes with the umbrellas over the tables and the fancy little cups?”

Peter laughed. He couldn’t help it. He hadn’t seen that coming. “Until you get bored of them, sure!”

“I’ll never get bored of them,” Wade swore, and he seemed to be a little bit lost in his own head now, “They always have the best coffee. Even when it’s shit, because it comes in those cute little cups. Fancy cups are the best.”

“Wade,” Peter said softly, cutting off his monologue about dishware and trying to let him know, through his name alone, that Peter’s next question was a serious one. “You said your face was too noticeable. May I see it?”

Peter tried to keep his expression open, and honest, and hopeful. He wanted Wade to know he was allowed to say no, but also that Peter really wanted him to say yes. It would be awfully awkward to date someone that he didn’t know what they looked like. 

Wade obviously hesitated. This was a big deal to him. Peter would absolutely respect it, if he said no. They could work up to it, or they could find a way around it. Peter wasn’t sure that would work forever, but he had come too far not to at least give it a try.

“Of course, Sweetie Pie.” Wade’s tone didn’t match his words. He sounded so unsure and Peter was ready to take it back, to tell him they could do this another time, but Wade was already peeling the coverings away. 

From the first glimpse of his neck and chin, Peter could tell the skin was just as marred as what he had seen on the discarded pair of legs. As Wade revealed more, it became clear that his whole body would be like that. Like one giant scar that never healed. Peter’s hands stilled on Wade’s legs as he took it in.

Instantly, Wade’s expression darkened, and that’s what clued Peter in to his own actions. He didn’t stop to think about it because every second mattered if Wade was looking at him like that, so he rushed to touch him again. Both hands shot up to cup either side of Wade’s face, the same way they had just after the man had come back to life. This wasn’t a deal breaker for him. He couldn’t let Wade think so.

He just… Peter’s thumbs felt the curves of the mottled skin, traced the lines that would have been smooth curves on any other face. He just needed to see it. To take it in. “You’re right,” he finally said, a slow smirk pulling at his lips, “You’re very striking.”

Wade’s expression instantly became one of mock offense, “Are you making fun of me?”

Peter’s smirk became a grin. “We’re boyfriends now, right?”

Wade nodded. “Face-touching makes it official,” he joked.

Peter didn’t wait. He pulled Wade to him and pressed their lips together in a solid, very-not-tentative kiss. 

Wade was a little slow to react, but he got it together in a reasonable amount of time. Peter made a happy little noise of approval when he felt warm hands settle around his waist. 

The kiss was firm, but slow. Peter liked it. It was a good first kiss. 

When he leaned back, he didn’t go far. “I’m glad I met you, Wade,” Peter told him quietly, like he might be sharing a secret.

Wade’s smile was a little bit silly, and Peter absolutely adored it. “I’m glad you picked my ship.”

“I’m so sorry that we’re gonna have to put you back in that box,” Peter confessed, but he also might have been trying not to laugh. It wasn’t funny. Not really. But it was ridiculous, and the kiss had made him a little giddy. 

“We have a couple hours before that,” Wade brushed off, complete with a sweeping hand motion in the air. He looked a bit insane, with his posture straight, his clothes mostly missing, his hand delicately flipped in the air, his armor with holes in it, and his legs two itty bitty stumps as they grew back. There was no one else like Wade. Peter was absolutely sure of that. And also a bit thankful. “And I promise once it’s over, I’ll never bring it up again. You’ll be able to forget all about it. I absolutely will not bring it up at every anniversary to guilt you into more kisses. And chocolate. I  _ definitely  _ won’t do that. Promise.”

Peter just laughed.

And held Wade a little tighter.


End file.
